Weekend Blessing

The peaceful of Lake Toba in Sumatra

Psalm 46:10

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

Turmeric, Honey and Milk Facial Mask

I don't know if you have the same problem like I do with your skin face. Whenever I have a pimple I always tempted to pinched it out until it bleeding. And sometimes left a black spot on my face. Over the years my face left quite few of dark spot. My husband told me it looks beautiful, he thought they are freckles { Thanks Babe, only you think that way :) }. But it really bother me, so I was thinking to find something home remedies for this problem.

 

I went online browsing and found this recipes and kind of twist it. Turmeric, Honey and Milk Mask Facial. I remember back home when women just gave birth they drink turmeric with brown palm sugar. And I still remember my Mom gave it to me to try and they were not taste bad at all. Actually taste good.  They said will heal and give the energy back to the Mom. But it never come cross into my mind that they could use for your skin. They can moister and glow your skin face.

Here what I need and do :

- 1 teaspoon of turmeric
- 1 teaspoon of honey
- Milk as needed until you feel is thick enough

Turmeric will leave stain so I suggest to put on clothes that you don't care if you get stain on it. Mix all the ingredients until it thickened enough, clean your face and apply the mask ( I use the back of spoon so I don't have to touch it ) and leave it for about 20 minutes,  sometimes I leave it for 30 minutes. After that I wash it out with warm water and dried it. If you have the extra mix you can save if in fridge and use it again ( if it is get dry just add milk). I use this facial 3 times a week. After for about 2 weeks I can see the changing on my skin face.

I add turmeric to some of my cooking. Where I came from we use turmeric a lot in our dishes. After I got married my husband does not really like the smell. So I barely use it, But after I read the benefit of it I start to use it again ( depend on what kind of dishes you are cooking )

You can read more the benefit of turmeric here !! I hope you can get the benefit of turmeric like I do !!

What of homemade remedies that you use so far ???

After All Is Not An Easy Waiting !!!

This is a post that is kind of hard for me to share. It is about my personal feelings for the last 5 years or so. My husband and I have been married for over 5 years. If you notice... I have not mentioned anything about kids on this blog. This is because we don't have any... yet. We have been praying and asking God about this very thing for some time. God's answer has been either not now, wait or completely NO. At this point, I'm really not sure which one.

 

For the first 4 years of our marriage, we didn't ask the doctor to find out if something was wrong with either of us( we were just kind of waiting and praying ). Not until this past April I did go to get a checkup and my husband as well. The tests revealed nothing wrong with my husband but my prolactin level a little bit high. I'm not sure if this is a factor in infertility. I'm starting to get frustrated. We don't want to get fertility treatment and those kind of things, for a couple of reasons mainly financial ( our insurance does not cover this plan ). At least, we know that neither of us have something major to worry about.  

 

I told my husband last month, when we found out that there is no baby yet, that I think I'm about give up on the whole process. I forced myself to keep waiting to see what God has in store for us. In the meanwhile I just take my vitamins, pray and keep hoping.

 

 

I never thought that the feeling of waiting and hoping for a precious baby would be so hard. For the first 3 years, we were still OK with waiting and just enjoyed trying. I guess that fun didn't  hit me until I realized .... I'm not young anymore :)  

 

We knew that we wanted to have a baby from the beginning of our marriage. I came from a big family ( 5 siblings ) and ,as far as I know, my Mom never had a problem having a baby. My husband came from a large family as well. My in-laws did have a hard time having a baby too and even adopted a baby boy before being blessed with 3 more boys. Most of the time, we never know how God will work in our life.

 

 

I cried and kept asking God to show us what is His plan in our life about this matter. Especially, this past week I just felt so down and just want to cry and cry. I ask God if He plans to give us a baby ! Please... before we reach age 40 (we both are in the mid 30's or close to 40). You know with all those precious little kids you need lots of energy. I guess I just need more faith. We have to trust that if God will bless us with one He will bless us with energy to run around and keep up with that child too.

 

Keep us in your prayer ( especially me ) and I will keep reminding myself of these verses

 

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him. and He shall direct thy paths !!

Weekend Blessing

I hope you have a wonderful and blessing weekend with your love one today !!!
Today I will share with you the bible verse from the book of Romans. This verse always reminding me how great is God and always there for me in all my circumstances in JOY, trial and difficulties. He works it all for my good.



Cherry Picking in Charlottesville, VA

Romans 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Shabby Chic Sewing Machine

Hi all ! What a wonderful day ! Friday is here. I hope you have a wonderful plan for the weekend. Or just enjoy your time with your love one.

I love how this sewing machine turned out. My husband even tempted to keep it. But we will see as for now I put it on CL. If someone claimed it great if not great too.

I got it from a goodwill auction. I start working on it. As usual I did all the step how to work on furniture, sanded, clean and so on.

I use Min Wax Chestnut stained for the top and Behr paint left over from another project for the rest part. I would say this project is easier than the other sewing machine I have done. I put 2 coats paint. And finished it up with lacquers.

 

I keep the old hardware. I cleaned it and spray painted it with bronze color.

 

Not so shabby sewing machine !!!

 

Links

missmustardseed

impartinggrace

fivedaysfiveways

brag-about-it-link-party

linda-coastalcharm

thepinjunkie

Bargain Garden Stool { Our Weekend }

Happy Monday All !! I hope you had a great day !!

Usually I don't post about our weekend on regular basis unless we have a special trip to share and to remember. But last week and this week I feel I want to share it on this blog. Our weekend was more relaxing this week not like last week lots running around. We enjoyed it very much just my husband and I.

As usual we went to farmer's market in the morning and got all these fresh produce for $7. Seriously, whenever we buy a house in the future I want to make sure to have a yard to make my own garden. Farmers' market produce much more tastier than regular market.

After farmers' market trip we went to flea market try to find tools. But we couldn't find any. Next time for sure we will,  just need to be patient.

But instead, we find this beautiful garden stool. I've been wanting for  this kind of stool for awhile. The man who sell the stool told me is $5 and I still try to bargain for $3. { I know I'm ridiculous :) }
I found some online with the price totally out of my budget. I found at  overstock they sell it for $125. Mine is totally a great bargain. Again my patient paid off :)

In the afternoon we went to this farm festival called sweet corn festival and bought a bunch of corn, tomatoes. My husband loves their tomatoes.

We had nice dinner with our fresh corn, some produce from farmer's market along with crab cakes from Trader Joes. And butter pecan ice cream from farmers' market for dessert.

 

Sunday we went to church and did some shopping at the outlet and found some bargain. 

 

Today I sold one of my furniture project  through Craigslist :)

 

 

Link

BragAboutItTuesday

 fivedaysfiveways

Weekend Blessing

I hope you have a wonderful and blessed weekend !!
Today is my homeland ( Indonesia ) Independence Day ! The Bible verse below always cross my mind whenever I pray for a Nation either USA, Indonesia or perhaps all the Nation in the world !!!

Batak House ! My grandparents house from my Dad side

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

New Look Old Vintage Sewing Machine

Wow...I can't believe it the weather has been so nice in our area. The breeze, cool air and light sweater. I Feel like we are in Fall season !! Yet, we are still in mid of August ! Can you believe that !!

I Have to enjoy this beautiful weather and take advantage every moment of it. Painting and sanding in my balcony is one of them.

This sewing machine I got it almost over a year ago from CL. I use it as my night stand. I like it because is tall and work out good with our tall bed. Since I got it. I've never do anything with it. First I thought I will painting it. But it never happen :)

Until this past week I start to bring it into my balcony. I was sanding, clean to prep for painting. I was thinking to put stain on top and natural color paint on everything else.  But after I'm done sanding the top and found out the wood was a laminating.

First plan not going to work. So I have to go with other plan which was painting the whole things with natural color. I choose Valspar White Birchwood.

After the paint dried up ( I put about 3 coats ) I applied lacquer by Rust-Oleum to finished it up.

Also, I give a little distress on the edge to give a feeling of vintage sewing machine :)

 

 

This sewing machine not so old anymore :)

 

Link

missmustardseed

rainonatinroof

shabbynest

diy-vintage-chic

Amazing Trip to CVS ( Spent $9.85 )

I don't know about you ?? I always have a happy dancing when I made a great deal in the store !!

Today one of those days. I don't do couponing as much as I used to. I have a good amount of pile stock in my linen closet. So I need to slow down a little bit from those couponing. I went to CVS to buy a couple of things to add up my pile stock. This week CVS have a good deals for detergent and shampoo.

I did 3 transactions to get all of these 11 items for $9.85 OOP including tax. Total before coupons $43.19

Transaction #1

The foundation and lip gloss wasn't on my shopping list but I got coupon for Revlon from red machine $3 off purchase and $4 off $12 any cosmetic purchase also I have $2 printing coupon for foundation plus $8 ECB from previous purchase. When spend $15 on Revlon you will get ECB $6 back. So I decided to make this deal first because I figured I will spent the same amount of money and get more stuff.

Transaction #2

They have Tide on sale 2/$12 get back $4 ECB. Also I have 2 coupons for Tide.

Transaction #3

While I check Pantene shampoo they have 75% off some of them and some for sale 2/$7 Instead of just get 4 for $14 I go ahead and mix them. With this transaction I used 4 coupons : $2.50 off any shampoo with $12 purchase from red machine; 2 of $2/2 Pantene from coupons.com

Also I received $2 ECB for next purchase to CVS. Yay....happy dancing happen here.

Link
moneysavingmom

Our Weekend

Happy Monday All !

I hope you had a wonderful weekend ! Ours was wonderful and a little busy. Between our niece birthday party and my husband good friend's wedding. Also, we made time went to farmer's market to buy some goodies fresh food.

We slept in until around 8:30 and I made waffles for breakfast. We were thinking going to football training camp but it didn't happen. We figured will be to much for us.

 

We bought this yum home made ice cream from farmer's market. Oh..my it taste so delicious.

Had a blast at Miah's ( our niece ) birthday party. She had a beach theme party with slip and slide, snow cones, sand box. She had a blast with all her friends.

In the evening we went to one of my husband growing up friends. The ceremony was simple and nice. Also, they serve Greek food and Carolina BBQ style. We had a great time there.

Today I sold one of my project through CL. Yay....what a great day to start the week. Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead !!!

Weekend Blessing

Country Road in Charlottesville, VA

Psalm 32 :8

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye

Why I Love Dumpster ( Shopping Cart ) Diving #2

Happy Friday !! I hope you had a wonderful day ! I had an amazing day today. Got to chat with my high school best friend via Skype  this morning. Thank you to the Skype founder what a blessing. I use this application a lot to talk to my family back in Indonesia. It is very economical. all you need is a good internet connection, Skype account and you are good to go. Talk for hours and hours without any charge. I can see their faces too and vise versa  :)

Back to my post title. This time I got a lot of goodies. I think this trip was much better than shopping cart diving from last time. You can read about it  here. If you read the post you will know where I go for dumpster ( shopping cart ) diving. I go to Goodwill Outlet and Auction. My husband and I go here at least once a month searching for auction furniture for our next project.

On this trip, I didn't think I would get much, but patience paid off. I just hang around in the parking lot for about an hour, waiting for people to bring their cart out to see what goodies are left inside { I know... I keep asking myself "why would they do that" :)} Also, thanks to my patient husband ( waiting patiently inside our car in 90 plus degree weather ) while his crazy smart frugal wife is digging up all the goodies.

Let's see what I found from those lovely dumpster { shopping cart :) }

Beautiful nicely detailed frames

A lot of good things here. These stuffed animals are still in very good condition. I can put them in my Operation Christmas Child boxes. Slushy Magic Kit I thought my niece would love it along with the little bag, and the pencil bag. Raffia for some craft projects.

Kitchen toys I will give these to my niece as well. The basket came from the dumpster too.

 

These wreaths will be handy for this coming Autumn and the other one for Spring next year. I just need to add some little decorations and I will have a festive fall wreath hanging on my door :)

Books, I will sell them on eBay except the Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult I will keep it for now in addition to my books collection. And the little Christmas tree it will be handy in our bedroom this Christmas to hang some sentimental ornaments that we have.

Euro Chopper still in very good condition I don't have one of those so I will keep it. I was thinking of spraypainting the shell all white and use as a decoration on my coffee table. I will give the fall decorations away.

All kind of vases. I collect them and when I get up to 10-12 pieces I will sell them on CL ( which I did once already :)

These 2 kitchen appliances were an unexpected find. I was looking in this shopping cart sitting in parking lot and saw them inside. I started to roll the shopping cart away and some lady said : " that cart is belongs to so and so " I said :" I'm sorry !" and left it where it was. Suddenly the daughter ( about 13-15 years old) of so and so said : " No that doesn't belong to us " So I rolled again. This time another man said the same thing as the lady. I left it again. The daughter said the same thing for the second time :" No that's not ours " This time I rolled the cart for good to our car and these 2 appliances belong to me now :)

Not really sure if we want to keep both of them. I was thinking to donate both of them to the church for our free yard sale day ( give away stuff that donated by congregations to the neighbors ) but we didn't do it this year.

Those are my finds from dumpster ( shopping cart ) diving adventure :)

Have a great and blessings weekend friends !!!

Links

livingwellspendingless
theturquoisehome
homecomingmn
astrollthrulife
fivedaysfiveways
shabbynest/frugalfriday

Huge Coffee Table Makeover ( Almost Gave Up )

I hope you all have a nice day ! It is the middle of the week already ! Wow...how time just flies by... without realizing it we are almost done with this hot but lovely summer.

While the weather is still hot, sometimes it is nice to stay on my balcony to paint and makeover furniture that I have now. I enjoy every minute of it.

This huge coffee table is one of my projects. This one was really huge and heavy 60"x60"x24" and around 50-60 pounds. I'm so glad that someone already claimed it as their own through CL. But I want to share with you the pictures of before and after....

After we put the first coat of Red Cherry Stain

This table was a long project. After we put the first, and second coats of stain. We put Poly on it and to our surprise it turned all white. We were so disappointed and confused about what went wrong. We searched on the internet and discovered that it was probably the humidity. So we re-sanded it back ( yes we did it again ) to take all the white from the chemical reaction. And we redid it all over again. This time we put it inside the house to avoid the humidity but still... it gave us the same reaction...all white. This was the second time and we were almost ready to give up and just put this table into the dumpster or just paint the whole table with regular paint. I wish I took pictures of those white ugly spots all over the table. But we give it another try. This time we just give up to put Poly on it ( we left it without the Poly ).  We never figured out why. My thought is that the type of wood probably doesn't work with Poly. Or you might know..?

Despite all the crazy chemical reaction. Finally, the top was done and I was happy with it. I painted the base with Valspar Woodlawn Colonial Gray. I reused all the original hardware... cleaned them and spray painted them with a bronze color.

After I finished painting... about 3 coats. We sprayed it with Lacquer to give it a nice finish. Oh, thank God !! We were so happy with the final look. It took us more than a month between sanding and staining over and over again.

 

What project have you done and almost given up on it ???

 

Links

thriftydecorchick

astrollthrulife

livingwellspendingless

redheadcandecorate

missmustardseed

Dinner Rolls ( Our Favorite )

Hi All !!

 

This recipe is our new favorite dinner roll. I haven't make any dinner roll before. My husband love to have dinner rolls once in a while at dinner table. I went to Google a couple of dinner rolls recipe and found this recipe from Food website. I cut the recipe in half because I want to keep it fresh. The first time I tried this easy dinner rolls it turned out really good. Since then, I have used it for a few times and we always love it.

 

This week I made it again and thought to share on this blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do :)

 

Yum...Fresh from the oven :)

 

Before go to oven !

 

Don't you want try them after you put butter on :)

 

Easy Dinner Rolls

 

By MizzNezz on September 19, 2002

Prep Time: 15 mins

Total Time: 32 mins

Yield: 24 rolls

Ingredients

1 cup water ( 110 degrees F)

2 packages yeast ( Do not use the quick rising in this recipe)

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

4 1/4 cups flour

Directions

Combine water and yeast in lg bowl; let stand for 5 minutes.

With wooden spoon, stir in butter, sugar, eggs and salt.

Add flour, 1 cup at a time and beat in as much as you can.

(you will probably be able to use all the flour) Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 3 days.

Grease a 13x9 baking pan.

Turn dough out onto floured surface.

Divide into 24 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a smooth round ball.

Place in rows in prepared pan.

Cover and let rise for 1 hour; until doubled.

Heat oven to 375*.

Bake until golden brown, about 17 minutes.

Links
fivedaysfiveways
impartinggrace
thepinjunkie
notjustahousewife