by Texas Homesteader ~
Back in ‘the day‘ I always kept several packets of taco seasoning in my pantry for those days I was making Carnitas Tacos. Or Pulled-Pork Enchiladas. Or maybe Taco Soup. Or… well anything Tex-Mex flavored. RancherMan & I enjoy lots of Tex-Mex food, y’all. You know, ’cause that’s how we roll in Texas!
But that was before I started on this simple life journey. I’ve since learned that it’s beyond easy to whip up these spice mixes for myself. Come see…
by Texas Homesteader ~
*affiliate link
When we adopted our Mini-Schnauzer Baily several years ago, she was plagued by painful bladder stones. This condition also caused her to relieve herself often in the house, and her urine was sometimes tinged with blood. A carpet-stain nightmare! I’m happy to say surgery to remove her bladder stones was a success and Bailey has been a happy and healthy member of our household ever since. But that pet stain in our bedroom? Hummm…
Of course we tried to spot-clean the carpet ourselves with various purchased carpet cleaners. But even rinsing out the carpet to the best of our ability, the soap residue apparently attracted dirt over the following days until the stain magically ‘reappeared‘.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Years ago I did away with artificial scents in our home. Oh how I used to love those reed diffusers, plug-in room fresheners and scented candles! But I decided those artificial scents just weren’t right for me or my family.
These days I’m more apt to use essential oils for room fresheners than a plastic-packaged plug-in delivering a sometimes overpowering artificial scent. Recently I made a super-cute room freshener using a repurposed canning jar and leftover lace. So easy, so inexpensive!
by Texas Homesteader ~
RancherMan & I like to make our Christmas gifts ourselves to give to loved ones. This year we’d been working HARD for several months making different flavors of homemade cheese for our gifts. But my aunt is on a special diet, so cheese wouldn’t be a thoughtful gift for her at all. Hummm…
I know – she loves to garden and she’s always planting and tending to the flowers in her amazing garden. (Let me tell ya, her landscape is breath-taking!) I’ll make a hand scrub for her!
by Texas Homesteader ~
Several years ago our kids requested no more toys for Christmas for our grandkids. They already had so many toys that the mountains of additional toys they received each Christmas was beginning to be overwhelming. So we started a tradition of Experience Gifts for them. We’ll gather them all up and go do something fun with them. We’ll take them out to eat, do a fun activity together and bring them to the Homestead to have a slumber party with their cousins.
Sometimes the activity is a live Christmas play, the Children’s museum or a drive-through Christmas light display at the lake. This year we took them to a Ninja Warrior Obstacle Course and also Rock Climbing. This annual experience gift is so much fun for them and us too!
But when we gather as a family on Christmas day, although the grandkids already received their gift a couple of weeks earlier, I hate that there’s no gift for them on this day. So I decided to make Santa Sleighs for them this year. A cute gift and a little sumpin’ sweet for them too.
by Texas Homesteader ~
Y’all know I started this little ole blog of mine back in 2013. It was a hard year for us, I’d just been diagnosed with breast cancer. But RancherMan suggested I begin writing about our lives here on our Homestead. So we started a blog, I started writing and even all these years later I’m still here. I love writing about our lives and sharing snippets of our days!
I started doing a feature at the end of each year where I share my post popular homesteading posts of the year. Of course I’ll do that this year as well but I thought it would be fun to share a recap of all the post popular posts by year. Each year’s top 10 homesteading posts right here in one place!
by Texas Homesteader ~
I’m always looking for easy ways to label repurposed glass storage jars in my kitchen or pantry. And I especially like the jars to look nice when they remain out on our counter top, such as our popcorn jar.
I stumbled upon an idea of printing a design on paper & then using regular packing tape (you know, the wide tape you use for sealing boxes for shipping) and a laser printer to make a transparent image label. Since we have a laser printer I was intrigued & decided to give it a go. It worked perfectly!
by Texas Homesteader ~
Fall is here, y’all! Now I know some folks relish in changing the decor for their homes or porch with each changing season. Although it looks great, seasonal decor changing has never appealed to me. I guess I’m just not a Pinterest-worthy decorator. LOL
But still, there’s just something about the arrival of cool temperatures after a long, blisteringly-hot summer… I started getting the hankering for some cute flannel and/or plaid accents. So I thought it would be fun to make flannel-shirt decorative pillows for our guest bedroom. It was easy, even for my novice sewing skills. And here’s the kicker: I use those decorative pillows in my guest bedroom to store my spare sheets. Clever, no?
by Texas Homesteader ~
RancherMan & I had a wonderful porch addition built to augment our back porch. Even before the porch addition, we’ve always spent our evenings out there enjoying that Texas sunset. And when we have company, we all naturally congregated on the back porch. But now with the addition there’s even more room to spill outside & visit. And I’ve landscaped it up (on the cheap though, y’all) so it really is an oasis!
Now living out in the country without city lighting & all, it gets really dark at night. So a bright light outside will certainly attract every flying bug in sight! So I prefer a soft, gentle light. Recently I found several cute glass jar lantern lights at various craft & antique shops when we took a fun quick trip to Granbury, Texas. Of course I thought to myself: “I can make that!”
by Texas Homesteader ~
Y’all know I shun plastic like a banshee, right? I haven’t accepted a plastic shopping bag from the store in years, much preferring my pretty shopping basket anyway. And I refuse to buy over-packaged items too. I’ve learned that recycling isn’t the answer to our landfill problems – PRE-Cycling is! But what is precycling? Well that’s shunning trash from coming into your home in the first place.
But today I’m talking about cling film. You know the stuff, it’s always sticking to itself and hardly ever sticking to the item you’re trying to wrap. Use it once & throw it away. But whaddyagonnado?? Well, I’ve started using beeswax wraps!
