Journal of a Busy Mom

living one day at a time

Christmas Gifts: Peppermint Bath Salts

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Each year, I try to find a unique gift to give family and friends at Christmas time. I love to make homemade gifts. I don’t know any better way to show my love and appreciation than by giving of my time, my talent and my money all in one.

This year I made several unique gifts and here is the first one: Peppermint Bath Salts

I did not come up with it myself so I need to give credit to Suburban Simplicity.

I doubled the recipe to create these 6 1/2 Pint Wide Mouth Jars.

Here is the recipe:

4 Cups Epsom Salt

1 cup sea salt

1 cup baking soda

20-30 drops of peppermint oil

8-12 drops of food coloring

I got my peppermint on Amazon. Here is the link: Sun Essential Oils.

The jars I got at Walmart. Here they are on Amazon: Jarden Home Brand

  1. Combine first three ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Add peppermint and stir or whisk to distribute throughout the mixture.
  3. Divide in half into separate bowls. Add the food coloring to one of the bowls.
  4. Layer bath salts in the jars. It took about three tablespoons, maybe a little less since I had small jars. Press down and add the next layer and so one until you are done.

I plan to make some for myself (minus the food coloring) to use for foot soaks.  My daughter gets ingrown toe nails a lot so I am hoping this will bring her relief.

Ligia

Weekly School Schedule for 8th grader

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This year, I am working on helping my 8th grader become more independent in planning his school schedule, however, he has two things working against him-his ADD and dyslexia.
The ADD part needs the organization, reminders, list, schedules, etc.  I am reading this book:

In the chapter “What Can I Do About it?” The Treatment of ADD, the author discusses structure as being key to the treatment. In fact he says “Structure is central in the treatment of ADD. ..Without structure, no matter how much talent there may be, there is only chaos”. S o what is structure?  Structure refers to essential tools like lists, reminders, notepads, appointment books etc. A set of EXTERNAL controls that one sets up to compensate for unreliable internal controls”
So we have a board that tells him what to do during each Work Period each day.img_0099

and I use a weekly planner with his specific weekly assignments.

schedule-template

I also added in the bottom a section for weekly goals. I wrote out semester goals for him and I needed a place to remind him but also myself on those goals.

This planner works pretty well with him. He still will say “what do I have to do?” and I will say “look at your planner”.  Lately, he has just been working along getting his work done without asking what’s next. So maybe, its finally helping.

I do have to say that right now I am the one inputting his assignments. I would like to transition into he deciding what he will do each day.

But baby steps.

Ligia

Operation Christmas Child Update

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The kids and I filled 19 boxes. They each filled one box for each age group: 2-4, 5-9 and 10-14. I filled 7 boxes one of each age group and 1 extra 10-14 girl. I read once that the older group does not get as many boxes filled, so I did one extra.

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This year, our church was a collection center so ,naturally, I signed us up to volunteer. So here the kids helping to count and sort the boxes.

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Our church collected 2,823 shoe boxes and packed 143 cartons. That is a lot of kids! I am so happy I got to participate.

Next year, I really want to try and make it to the Processing Center. That would be a true honor. The nearest one is 8 hours away, so it would have to be a mini vacation.

Ligia.