• What’s with the name?

    Some have been confused in the past about my name, so I thought I’d try and clear that up.

    My real name is Pieternella. However, my parents felt my name might be too difficult to say in English (I was born in Holland) so they called me Peggy. Well… no offense to those named Peggy but I’ve never much cared for it. I feel it just doesn’t suit me. I feel my name, my REAL name, suits me just fine. BUT, Pieternella is so looooonnng to write, so I thought maybe it would be easier for people to write/say Pietra. However, I’m finding Pietra is actually harder for people to say properly then Pieternella. You see, Pieternella is REALLY easy to say, it’s simply pronounced Peter-nella. Easy!

    So after all this, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just stick with Pieternella. Maybe in my emails I could add the pronunciation in brackets so people would know it’s not some weird pronounced name that they’d never be able to say.

    Want to know my FULL name? ha! Now that is a REAL mouthful, but I love it. My full name is Pieternella Alida Geertruida. And no, that does NOT include my last name. lol Try and say that three times fast, IF you can figure out how to pronounce it!

    I was named after THREE of my aunts. Isn’t that awesome? When my one aunt (my aunt Pieternella, or as we know her, Tante Nel) came for a visit from Holland last  year, she brought me a bracelet that my father had given to her when he was in the army as a young man. What a treasure! It makes me happy to have that little piece of history. 🙂 I love history.

    And with that little bit of history, that’s enough rambling or I’ll carry on rambling all night and it’s almost midnight so I really should get to bed soon! I’ve just finished stocking the shop. There’s some nice things there this week, some packages, some custom slots including my favorite this week, a fishy PRR custom dundie slot for children. Aren’t these fabrics adorable?

    So come check it out. Everything goes live Friday at 2pm est, that’s 11 am pst (my time).

    We hope to see you then! http://hyenacart.com/HomesteadEmporium/

    And if I haven’t mentioned it recently, I really DO appreciate your continued support of our family business. YOU are what makes it great. REALLY! You are!

    Tomorrow we will be announcing the contest winners. I had hoped to do it today but we were out later then expected and I only had time to get the photos taken, edited and the listings done. I don’t want to rush giving everyone their numbers, so I’m going to go ahead and do it tomorrow when I have a bit more time! So come back tomorrow evening and take a look to see if maybe YOU are one of our winners. 🙂

  • What’s your favorite poem? Oops, don’t have one.

    Wednesday, June 2, 2010 NaBloPoMo writing prompt:
    What’s your favorite poem? (And if you don’t have one, why?)

    I’ve been thinking on this one ALL day and I can’t come up with one single FAVORITE poem. Why? Because I have this problem with just about everything in life. I don’t often have favorites.

    If you ask my what my favorite color is, I couldn’t tell you. I LOVE color, all colors. There are a few greens I don’t like at all, maybe a few mustard type yellows, muddy colors, not a big fan of any of those, but color in general, I love them all. Blues, purples, reds, oranges, yellows… the list goes on and on. Each one for different reasons. Purples are rich, pretty, yellows are bright and cheery, oranges can be so vibrant, reds can be the riches of them all if they are the right shades. See why it’s so hard to choose just one?

    Quotes, same thing. I love SO many quotes. I can tell  you what types of quotes I like best. Actually that would probably work for which ‘types’ of poems I like best too. Anything inspirational.

    I read a quote today that I loved immediately, for it’s so very true. I want to share it with you:

    Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.
    It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections…
    -Unknown

    How true is that?

    There are a lot of things going on in life here right now and I can choose to be un-happy, or happy regardless. I choose to be happy. Some days it’s just not quite so easy as others. 😉 As long as I keep trying though, I haven’t failed!

    Choose to be happy today! You can do it. We’ll do it together!

  • Do you know NaBloPoMo?

    http://www.nablopomo.com/

    I’ve tried to do this a couple of times, and have to admit to failure each time. I would like to succeed. I enjoy writing and I really should have enough to write about. This month they are having writing prompts which I think I’ll try to follow unless I have something else to talk about. And of course the regular biz posts will be scattered in between. So this is a warning to anyone who does not like to read someone nonsensical ramblings on a daily basis, there may be some over the next month, IF I can stick with this!

    Today’s prompt is:
    When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

    I feel as though I am truly blessed because I am doing today, what I always wanted to do when I grew up. I always loved children and dreamed of getting married and having at least four. Now here I am with five! I also always loved learning, and loved the idea of teaching BUT, I didn’t like school so much so this kind of squelched any ideas of becoming a teacher one day. However after we had children and we learned about homeschooling I knew I had found the perfect ‘career’.

    And, I always liked finding ways to earn some money. Always. If I could earn it creatively, all the better. And, here I am years later with my own business, creatively earning an income for my family while spending my days with my children, teaching them here at home.

    My husband and I will celebrate TWENTY years of marriage this year!

    So truly, I am today what I always wanted to be when I grew up.

    It hasn’t all come easy. To share it so briefly makes it sound so fairy tale like. lol Believe me, the long version is not. ha! BUT, what it is, is my life, and I wouldn’t change any of it for anything and what it is today, has been WELL worth working hard for. 🙂

    And with that, back to reality!

    Our contest for the free gift certificate ends tonight at midnight, pst! So quick, enter now before it’s too late! Winner will be posted HERE tomorrow before midnight!

  • It’s time for a contest! Win a $20.00 gift certificate!

    It’s time for a contest! It’s been a while since our last one. You have to work a little to enter this one. We want to hear from you!

    YOU are what makes Homestead Emporium what it is! Without YOU… well, it just wouldn’t be the same now would it? lol

    So here’s what I would like from you.
    Answer this question:

    If the sky was the limit and you could choose ANYTHING you wanted from Homestead Emporium, something you’ve seen in the past, in the present, or you keep wishing you WOULD see in the future, what would it be?

    Post your answers here on my blog in the comments (I keep hearing we’re not supposed to hold contests on fb?? so we’ll put it over here to be safe) and I’ll enter you to win a 20.00 gift certificate for anything at either of our shops, instock OR custom. YOU get to choose.

    Want to be entered to win again? Share this on YOUR blog and come back here and share the link. Or share it on a message board, and come back and share the link where you posted. Ask a friend to join our fb, and then come back here and tell us who they are (I will NOT post their names, all entries will be screened before posted publicly and I will remove the names) and I’ll enter you, AND your friend. Tell your friend to also post here so they’ll have yet another chance to win too!

    You remember the old commercial? They told 2 friends, and then they told 2 friends and so on and so on, share with 2 friends and spread the word about cloth and at the same time, give others the opportunity to win a gift certificate!

    Maybe they’ll be able to give cloth a try for free if they win! Or maybe you’ll win and can add to your own stash!

    Maybe you don’t use cloth pads, but would love some organic facial cloths?

    Maybe you’re a guy and think all this talk about women stuff is kind of gross but you love the idea of scrumptious organic wash cloths for yourself? My husband loves them, maybe you would too. You can win yourself some of those with the gift certificate if you’re brave enough to spread the word about reusable cloth! You know what they say about there being nothing to fear but fear itself. 😉 I’d love to see more guys jump on the cloth bandwagon!

    So spread the word. If we get lots of participation, I’ll add more gift certificates too. You KNOW I love to give things away! So give me a reason to give away 2, 3,  4 or even FIVE $20.00 gift certificates!!

    Contest closed! I will announce the winner(s) here within 48 hours

  • Most days, I absolutely love being a wahm…

    Most days, I absolutely LOVE being a work at home mom…

    but today, is not one of them. Honestly, 99.9% of the time I truly love what I do. Just the other day though, I made the comment, “The best part of being a wahm is that you can take a break whenever you want, the worst part is that you never TRULY get a break”.

    Today, is one of those few days. My grandmother (my Oma) passed away this morning. When I heard the news, all I wanted to do was go take a drive by myself down to the ocean or some other such quiet place and be alone, with my thoughts. Instead, I had to work. I suppose that’s the way it is for most people though, not just wahm’s. Our biz (homesteademporium) is such an important part of our income though, it has been our main income for quite some time now, so taking time off is not an option unless very well planned in advance. Not even a few hours on a day like today, when I have to get the products photographed and listed in the shop for tomorrow. Tonight we have to work on some tax paperwork that needs to be post dated by tomorrow (I know I know, procrastination at it’s best), so today was just not a day when I could take some time off. Even now, I’m typing while I’m waiting for my photos to upload. I just had to write this out though. If I can’t take a break, I can at least write out my thoughts.

    My grandmother, well all my grandparents, were in Holland. That is where I was born. We came to Canada when I was just 2 years old. About every 4 years while growing up, I would go back to Holland to visit. I usually stayed with my grandparents on my father’s side (it’s my mom’s mom who died today) but I would also get to go and visit my mom’s family. Either they would come pick me up, or my father would take me there.

    I don’t have a ton of memories of being at my grandmothers, but I do have some. For that I am very grateful. I remember one time, I was either 7, or 12, and I had to share a single bed with my aunt who is the same age as my own older sisters. My mom is the eldest of 10 children. This aunt is the youngest sibling. I remember my mom telling me that after she had my eldest sister, her mom had to ask her to give back all her baby things because she was going to need them again. 🙂 How cool would that be? Mother and daughter both having babies. 🙂

    I’m randomly rambling here.

    Anyways, I remember how much fun it was to share a bed while visiting, with my AUNT! Not a cousin, but an aunt, and to think she was only 5 or 6 years older then me. I thought that was so cool.

    I remember sitting at my grandmother’s dinning room table. She spent a LOT of time at that table. A lot of photos of her are at that table. I don’t have enough photos of my grandmother. Speaking of photos, I’m trying to recall if I have any of my grandmother and I together. Sadly, I don’t think I do.

    This reminds me that as much as I hate having my photo taken, I really should hand the camera over to someone else once in a while so my children, and my grandchildren, will have more memories of me. Maybe I don’t want them, but they might.

    Having all your grandparents far away all your life isn’t a whole lot of fun. I suppose it was neat that I got to travel to Holland so often in my growing up years, but I would have traded that in a minute for having them close by. When I married my husband almost 20 years ago, 3 of his grandparents were still alive and very much a part of his life. He grew up right across the street from his father’s parents and just a 20 minute drive from his mother’s parents. When we married, his grandparents all accepted me into their family with VERY open arms. I feel very blessed to have known each one of them very well and to have been able to spend a fair amount of time with each one while they were still alive.

    Grandparents are very special. They are our history. I wish I would of had the opportunity to have introduced my children to my history before each of my grandparents passed away. Sadly, now that opportunity is lost. I mourn not only for my grandmother today, but for the loss of opportunity to see her again, with my children.

    And with that, the photos have finished uploading. My husband will be home soon and we’ll need to work on those taxes, so I had better get back to work on those listings.

  • Let’s have a question and answer post!

    First off, here is MY question.

    Where on God’s green earth did spring go???!!!

    It WAS here! I have proof!

    But now it’s gone…

    Hopefully to be seen again soon!
    It was below freezing here last night. That’s very strange for our area here on the west coast. Very strange indeed.

    But back to business, let’s get on with questions, YOUR questions.
    I thought a question and answer blog post would be fun, AND informative!
    I know for a fact that there are MANY unanswered questions out there about reusable cloth pads, and even about periods. So whether you are young, old-er  (now that I’m getting old-er, I always say old-er, no such thing as old anymore :p ha ha!) or if you’re somewhere in between. Leave your questions here in the comments section. I PROMISE it will all be anonymous. So don’t be shy, don’t be scared, got a question you’ve been wanting to ask SOMEONE but to afraid to open up and share? Ask away! Comments will not be made live. Instead, in my next post I will share them here, with NO names, but with LOTS of answers. If I don’t know the answers, I’ll do my best to FIND the answers for you!

    I’m a research-a-holic, (or maybe that just makes me a nerd..?)
    Really. I believe it makes me a better pad maker though, so it’s ok. I’m good with it. You should be too. Take advantage of my weakness(or could that be a strength?) and ask away!

    And NO questions are “TMI” (too much information) here. Believe-you-me! I have probably heard it all. If someone can STUMP me on a question, a legitimate question, I’ll take my hat off to you and send you a coupon code for your efforts. lol There’s not too many questions I can’t find answers for when it comes to our pads, periods and a lot of womenly issues relating to either. Not that I’m an expert, but I trust you’ll know enough to ask the real experts the types of questions I couldn’t answer but I’ll do my best and I’ll let you know when I simply can’t answer a question you have.

    So share away, have fun with this!
    Period’s are nothing to be shy about. Most women/girls get have them, yet it’s so ‘taboo’ still.
    Let’s change that. 🙂
    One woman at a time!

  • A day trip, this week’s customs, and more… there’s ALWAYS more…

    This week has been busy once again. Renovations are still underway as my husband has been repainting any wall that doesn’t look completely perfect. He’s been patching up any and all holes he can find! If our home wasn’t on the market for sale, I would consider these to be ‘make work projects’ but since we want the very best possible chance of selling this year, everything he does, he does to perfection to the best of his ability, which is about as close to perfect as one can get.

    At this very moment he has unplugged the main computer to change out the outlets and outlet covers! I’m typing in word on my netbook and shall copy and paste into the blog once he’s done. Our entire upstairs has been in complete upheaval for the week and I can only thank God that we haven’t had a call for a showing in the midst of it all. LOL It’s not often you hope NOT to get any calls for showings. I believe by the end of the weekend our home may just possibly be back in order, dare I say it? Next, hubby is moving onto the outside work once he’s finished touching things up here. He’ll be rebuilding the back steps next!

    And, sure enough before I even had a chance to finish this post (it’s taken me 24 hours lol), we did indeed get asked to not show the house once, but twice! We’ve been able to put the one showing on hold until next week, hopefully we can do the same with the other. They want to see it tomorrow afternoon but we just got in from taking the kids to the city to get the eldest kids their passports and we are SO not ready to have a showing by tomorrow afternoon! lol We DO want to sell this house, but we’re not miracle workers either so hopefully they don’t mind waiting another day or two. Dh will be away at local schools all day tomorrow speaking on behalf of the RCMP (he’s an auxiliary police officer) which means he’ll be leaving here by 7 am and there will be NO time for finishing the last bit of work he has to do before then. We just have to trust that it will all work out.

    Speaking of our trip to the city, here’s a few photos from today I thought I’d share. While dh was in getting the passports with the eldest two kids, I took the younger three for a walk around the city & harbour. It’s truly beautiful.

    I will miss our Pacific coast when we do finally move so I take LOTS of photos.

    Julia, making lots of her own memories with her little camera:

    Shaylah on a bench, we were listening to a street performer:

    Elsa on the same bench, and yes, she has crazy hair. It was ‘extra’ crazy due to the ocean wind/breeze but it seems no matter what we do with it, this is her hair’s favorite ‘look’. lol If she’s ok with it, I’m ok with it. 😉
    One day I will share more about Elsa but I first I need to be confident that “she” is ok with my sharing.

    Along our walk, we saw a duck. A very handsome duck. I didn’t realize they care to be in the ocean water! You really do learn something new every day.

    In business news, this week we’ve got a couple of new-’er’ pad designs.

    We were asked to consider doing other EnduraPad sizes so we‘ve been playing around a bit.. At LilyPadLanding tonight our first few made their debut, the EnduraPad Teeny Ultimate.

    We’ve stocked LOTS of  “short” (just 8 inches!) Regular Comfort Contour Pads this week. We’ve widened the backing on these to give more coverage then before, more like our 9.5 inch regular comfort contour pads while keeping the ‘body’ size of the “short” regular comfort contour just 8 inches. When snapped around these are still quite a bit narrower then our regular comfort contour pads.
    We’ve stocked singles and doubles to give you the opportunity to try them out! We’ve also stocked some with an EXTRA layer, a layer of zorb! The zorb pads all have the extra part lines of stitching through the center of the pads so that you know which pads are which in your stash.

    This week Julia is determined to have you try our facial mitts. As I share in her listings, she is now making the facial mitts and Elsa and Shaylah are doing the cotton balls. Normally the facial mitts stock in sets of two, but Julia felt maybe some would like to just try out ONE first and see how they like it so this time we’ve stocked some single facial mitts. Below is a photo of a ‘natural beauty’ modeled by my 18 year old. She has much nicer hands then I. 😉

    Speaking of my eldest daughter…
    As one who sews I always dreamed my kids would love to sew as well, especially my eldest. Well, she did buy a sewing machine quite a few years ago, I believe she was about 12 at the time and I had high hopes. That was short lived though as she realized fabric wasn’t really her thing (*insert MAJOR shock from this sewing mama here*) and once I got over my initial sadness, I knew it was ok. I don’t want to force my kids to love my passions but I did hope that somehow she’d decide that she did want to at least be a part of the business, in her own way.

    For the last while, she has been doing a large majority of the cutting of our inner and backing fabrics. This has helped a lot as the business has grown but this still isn’t truly “her” thing. As things have gotten even busier, and I find myself spending as much time doing all the other business things as I do sewing, I’ve been finding myself being pulled much too thin. Some days I spend 11 hours at this between sewing, listing items for sale, packaging etc. and it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to fit the other important things in, mainly our homeschooling. We seem to fit in the reading, writing and arithmetic but there is SO much more to learning then just the 3r’s. I found I was getting quite frustrated. I love my business, but I also love my children and they deserve more then ‘quicky’ schooling. lol

    So I began looking for other ways that Alesia could become more involved in the business. She began doing emails to customers quite a while ago and that has been going well. Once I finished packaging orders, she would then take all the order forms and email each customer letting them know their order has been shipped. She said she really liked the ‘web’ type work and I already knew that web work is not my ‘forte’, so I wondered what else she could take over. The next step was to print off all the orders, and their address labels. So now that has been going very well too! Yay! Well she had been bugging me for some time, after watching me spend hours upon hours packaging orders each week that she was SURE she could do this job too BUT, for me it’s simply too risky so far to just hand it right over. If an order mistake is made in the packaging, the wrong order is shipped out. I was not ready to hand this over. However, I realized she COULD put the orders together and then once they were all sorted, I could then package them. So that’s been her next step in the biz. This is what I sit down to now when I package orders:

    All the orders placed into our neat zip bags with their order pages, AND the business cards! What a HUGE  help! It was so nice the other night to be in the cabin sewing late into the evening, knowing that while I sewed, orders were being all organized and put together! What a blessings! PLUS, the best part is that Alesia says she LOVES this work! Yay! My hope is to keep moving her into more ‘admin/web’ type of work. One of her little sisters REALLY wants to do the cutting but I’m not equipping a 10 year old with a rotary cutter no matter how much she tries to convince me that she won’t hurt herself. LOL

    I’m glad we’ve been able to make the business work for our family. My goal has always been to keep this as a true family business but I really was beginning to wonder how long I’d be able to keep up the pace as things continue to grow. To be able to move family members into positions that they excel at, is a great thing!

    Last but not least, I thought I’d share our custom orders from this week.

    5 UltiMini Pads

    A “kaleidoscope” of pads

    A postpartum package

    Heavy wrap wing pads

    Ultimate’s, Ultimate II’s and UltiMini’s

    Well I do believe I’ve typed enough for one night! I seriously need to become more regular about posting so I don’t have so much to share all at once! Thank you if you’ve made it through! lol

    All our newest stock goes “live” in the shop at 11 am PST, 2 pm EST Friday- http://hyenacart.com/HomesteadEmporium

    We hope to see you then!

  • Latest custom orders & more.

    First off, those of you who have received orders in the last little while may have noticed two things.
    1) different packaging, this was not done by choice! Our usual packaging is a zip bag securely sealed, and then put into a polymailer. However, our newest shipment of zip bags seem to have taken the scenic route and have been very slow in arriving. Hopefully they’ll be here VERY soon.

    2) our newest ‘cards’. When I contacted the person who did our previous cards, she let me know that she was away and wouldn’t be home to produce more for a while yet. So I decided to try my hand at creating some myself, through vista print. I thought rather then going with biz card size, so that I would be able to fit all our wash instructions etc. on the back, I’d go with ‘postcard’ size. Well then I saw the ‘button’ for “oversized” postcards and I figured maybe the extra bit of space would make it that much easier to squeeze so much info onto the card so I went for it.

    Ha! When the box arrived and I opened it up, I LAUGHED OUT LOUD! They are HUGE! For those of you who have not received one, here’s a look, next to a regular size biz card.

    I do like how they turned out though, but next time we’ll be going for the regular size postcards. lol This is NO way to save on paper! Oops!

    Here are this last week’s custom orders:

    A set of completely organic pads. Bamboo velour tops, with organic cotton fleece backings.

    A set of postpartum/heavy pads and nursing pads with milk.stops

    A mix of UltiMax, Regular wrap wing and Teeny Ultimates

    UltiMax, UltiMini and Tiny Liners in Sundance colorway

    And two Ultimate’s and three UltiMax pads

    That’s all for now!

  • A month has gone by already? Craziness!

    I can not get over how quickly time has been going by this “spring”. Yes, it’s spring here on the west coast of Canada, although with today’s sudden snow “storm”, you’d never know! Yesterday some of the kids were in shorts, today we had a sudden storm blow in and bring some snow along with it! We hadn’t seen snow since last November! Just too weird!

    Anywho… things have been busy. I thought it was time I share some more custom orders first, then I’ll share some quick photos of our spring so far here on the homestead!

    Petite custom order, an ultimini, ultimini xs, regular wrap wing and light wrap wing.

    Unfortunately, sometimes I’m not so happy with my custom order photos. They are usually done on the fly before I package them up to ship them out!

    A postpartum order, Ultimax,  ultimates, and heavy wrap wings.

    Ultimate Heavy Flow, Heavy Comfort Contour and Regular Comfort Contours.

    A set of pantywraps:

    Another postpartum package, Ultimax, ultimini’s and regular wrap wings.

    A bunch of heavy wrap wing pads.

    And this was a special custom order done with the customers fabric. I had some fun playing with a black background for some of these.

    The black adds a totally different ‘ambiance’.

    Love how these turned out. 🙂

    And that’s it for the custom orders this time! We’re finishing up a few more this week and maybe I’ll get the photos onto the blog quicker this time!

    As I mentioned, this has been a busy time here on the Homestead so I’ll share a few things that have been going on around here.
    First off, my girls wanted to learn how to do fondant so my eldest made up a batch and the three younger ones had me take photos of their finished cakes. Not too bad for their first try but they’ve decided they like soft icings better. LOL I’m sure we’ll visit ‘fondant’ many times over the years though. If anyone has a favorite recipe, let me know! This actually didn’t taste to bad but fondant is never like a creamy icing of course.

    In true “homesteading” news, even though we plan to put our place back up on the market very soon (tomorrow actually), we also know that homes don’t always sell right away so you can’t stop living in the meantime. Because of this, there was still paddocks to be redone, new fences to be put up, and a new chicken coop to be made. Some may remember that last fall a mink got in and killed the last of our poor old hens. We held off getting anymore, and were considering waiting “until we move” but that gets REALLY old, REALLY fast (you couldn’t count how many times we’ve said the words “after we move” in the past three years!) so we decided to not just get chickens, but a few DUCKS too! The kids have been wanting ducks for years but I had to explain to them that if we got ducks, there really wasn’t any way we could move the ducks along with our five horses, 3 dogs, 3 cats and possibly two rabbits. LOL So we could only get ducks if they understood that they would need to remain behind with the chickens, either here with the new owners, or in a new home we found for them before we ‘move’. They agreed, so we got some ducks!

    First, the chicken coop had to be re-fenced, the hen house had to be re-done inside to try and keep out minks and anything else that might try to get in there, and we decided to put a mesh over the whole thing to keep the eagles, hawks, owls and even vultures (yuck they are ugly) out of the run! Some like free range, but we don’t dare around here .We let them out sometimes, but for the most part we keep them safely inside their run.

    The kids gave the ducks their old kiddie pool, I think they like it. The dog, he’s not so sure about those ducks though!

    The very next day, we picked up 10 hens. The hens did not know what to think of those ducks! The ducks, well they grew up with hens so they felt right at home and couldn’t figure out why these hens we’re being so ‘chicken’. 😉

    They seem to get along well now though, although the hens still keep their distance.

    We’ve had our first eggs from the hens too! That’s always exciting.

    We’re really excited to see what the ducks eggs will look like. We were told they are all girls but won’t lay for another couple of months so we have a bit of time to wait yet. I’ve never seen a duck egg, let alone tasted one.

    Can you believe one of those eggs was a DOUBLE yoker?! In one of those tiny things! lol

    I made crepes for dinner that night. Yum.

    If you’re on our facebook page, you’ve heard all about how our bathroom went from this:

    to this:

    and this:

    to this:

    If you’re not a fan on our facebook yet, then be sure to join us! We share lots there and we even ask for your help with upcoming stockings etc.!

    This post is getting very long, so I should probably stop here but I wanted to share one last photo. Our “little” filly Lacey, the one born to our eldest daughter’s rescued horse, is now TWO! So hard to believe it’s been two years since she was born and almost three years since her pregnant mama came to us. They’ve done SO well.

    I really should blog more often so I don’t have a “book” to share each time I post! LOL

    Until next time, happy homesteading, whether you’re in the country or trying to live a little country in the city. 🙂

  • It’s been a while…updates, photos and even a healthy tip!

    It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the blog!
    Yikes! Facebook has become my favorite place to share upcoming stockings etc. because it’s so quick and easy, and everyone is right there and able to reply on the spot! I’ve just asked on facebook what our customers would like to see in upcoming stockings. Come on over for a visit if you’d like to have some input!

    I love writing and sharing lots of photos too though, so I really shouldn’t neglect my blog. 🙂

    Recently, my husband and I took our three youngest children (dd 12 and twin dd’s 10) on vacation. It was the first time they ever flew in a plane and they were SO excited. It was actually the first time dh and I had flown together in a plane since our eldest was just 3 months old, over 18 years ago! LOL So I guess we were pretty excited too. I had not flown in quite a few years, I think it was about 15 years ago. When I was younger I used to fly quite often, as all our family is in the Netherlands. It was always exciting. This was just a 1.5 hour flight but it was a ton of fun and a great experience non the less!

    We had a great time! The younger kids had lots of fun with us, and the older two complained about being bored at home alone because they weren’t allowed to go anywhere. LOL This was the first time we had left them in charge of the homestead. Actually, the homestead is the main reason we haven’t been away for a vacation in so long. It’s one thing when you have a cat and maybe a dog or two. It’s a whole other story with five horses, 3 dogs, 3 cats and other ‘farm’ animals. LOL So when the eldest two suggested we go away WITHOUT them, at first that seemed like a very foreign concept but then we realized that life does change, children grow up and we may as well enjoy it rather then fight it. The eldest two are going away to their friends wedding in May, so they didn’t feel the need to come along on this vacation. They preferred to prove they are ‘grown up‘ now instead. lol

    Vacation is fun, but it’s always nice to come home too. Now, just a week later, it almost feels like we were never gone. lol

    I thought I’d share some recent custom order photos.
    I always love looking over custom photos as it shows just how very different each of our customers are!

    A petite custom, Ultimate regular flow and thong liners;

    UltiMini, Ultimini xs, mini Poppetjie blankies, regular wrap wing and a couple of swirl tiny liners.

    Teeny Ultimate’s, Light comfort contour and tiny liners.

    Two UltiMini’s

    Natural Beauty package

    Postpartum and beyond package with nursing pads.

    UltiMini and Heavy Wrap wings with zorb! These are super absorbent pads!

    Postpartum order, UltiMax Supers, UltiMax, regular wrap wing and a Poppetjie blankie.

    Nursing Pad custom order

    Heavy Wrap wing, UltiMini and UltiMini xs pads.

    Heavy wrap wings, ultimini, regular wrap wings, ultimini xs and teeny ultimates!

    Ultimate Pads, Ultimate II, Ultimate Heavy Flow, Regular Wrap wing and Ultimate Regular Flow

    Postpartum package

    Some more nursing pads, with milk.stops

    Super bright petite custom order.

    UltiMini’s, regular wrap wing, ultimate regular flow, teeny ultimates, light comfort contours and tiny liners!

    More heavy wrap wing with zorb!

    That’s all the custom order photos  for now!

    And remember, if you are  not yet a fan on facebook, head on over there now! Once we hit 500 fans we will be drawing TWO HUNDRED dollars in prizes!
    The top prize is a ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR gift certificate for ANYTHING we sell, instock or custom orders!

    We have 278 fans so far, so we really aren’t all that far off. I know we can do it! 🙂

    And just a note for those of you who may have missed it, we are no longer stocking on Tuesday evenings. With this stocking time, I was constantly working on the weekends getting the last minute things finished, snapping photos, editing and listing. This just wasn’t working out for my family, which it really shouldn’t. Families need time together, to play, and even to rest. We’re also now stocking at TWO congo’s, LilyPadLanding AND Revolution. Both stock on Thursday evenings, each one twice a month, which means TWO stockings a week for Homestead Emporium. The thought of spending TWO evenings a week putting up listings was putting me into a bit of a panick. Each Homestead Emporium stocking requires about 5-7 hours just listing items for sale. The congo stockings require about 2-3 hours. This would mean I’d have TWO evening’s a week of doing listings on top of my regular sewing times each afternoon after we finish our homeschooling. That just wasn’t sitting well with me. So this is the perfect solution. Now I am able to stock the congo AND the regular shop all in one night, Wednesday nights, and it gives our customers time to browse our regular shop for two days before everything goes “live”. I like this idea and I think that once we are all accustomed to the change, it will work out well for everyone. Most importantly though, my family will once again have mama back to themselves on the weekends (as I sit here typing on my biz blog on a Sunday afternoon LOL!)

    In other news, simply because this post isn’t yet long enough (ha ha!) I wanted to share something I learned recently. For almost two years now, I’ve been experiencing shoulder pain. My dr said it was the same thing a baseball player would have, and it was due to sewing/serging so much. Thankfully, I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance so I simply lived with it and carried on. Every once in a while it would get bad enough that I would take something for the pain, but then the pain pills would upset my stomach. I really hate feeling ill, more so then being in pain, so I just sucked it up and kept on sewing/serging.

    A while back a friend had mentioned tumeric, and how wonderful it is. A few years back I had been told by our holistic dentist to take tumeric for a few weeks before, and after, having some dental work done. I believe he said it was highly recommended for fighting infection and I recalled just how great I had felt that entire winter, despite all the dental problems I had been having. So I looked into tumeric again after my friend mentioned it may help with  my shoulder and I began to take it. Sure enough, within the week I now have almost full mobility of my shoulder once again and my pain has gone from about an 8 out of 10, to probably about a FOUR! For the first time in almost two years, I can actually raise my arm to put my hair up in a ponytail without excruciating pain! I can sleep without being woken up by the pain. Even my mind feels clearer because it’s not constantly battling the pain! What a miracle!

    So if you suffer from pain, inflammation of any kind, infection of some sort, take a look at tumeric and read up about it for yourself. I found in my research that it is also good for those with digestive problems, liver problems and there have been studies done targeting certain types of cancer. Well worth taking a look at tumeric.

    As a side note, I first attempted to take it in powder form, in my daily smoothy. Yuck. lol I’m now taking it in a gel form, much easier. lol

    And that’s my tip for anyone suffering from pain. It’s not fun, do some research, and see if tumeric might help you! And please remember, this is simply MY opinion/findings. Do your own research, talk to your dr, whatever you need to do to keep you healthy, and safe. In my findings, they said it is not recommended for pregnant women, or those nursing, so be forewarned please. Each person needs to find out for themselves, through their own research, if any herb or medicine will be right for them. 🙂