Princess Five Getting Asked to Homecoming

This past week was a week of "firsts" fort Princess Five.Someone called the house phone which doesn't happen often. Princess Five answered the phone. It was a boy asking to speak to me.

Of course, this event when a dance is coming up would get Princess Five's mind going. Most of the time people call our cell phones and the only calls on the house phone are telemarketers and we NEVER answer the house phone so for him to call and for her to answer it and for her to be home with her busy schedule were all a weird coincidence.

When I got on the phone, I was asked if Princess Five had been asked to "Homecoming?" She hadn't been and she hasn't been on her first date yet. We don't date until age 16 in our family so I thought she would have been asked around her birthday for a date but we have been busy.

The boy wanted to come do something to her room. I am not sure what it is about the "decorating" the room that is so common, perhaps it is just an insight to the person they want to go out with but each of the girls have had their room decorated at some point in high school.

Here is Princess Four getting asked to her first date with them decorating a bedroom.  

Here is Princess Three being asked with her room being decorated.

The only thing I told the boy about decorating her room was: NO CONFETTI! We are still to this day finding mylar glitter in that room from when someone decorated it when Princess ONE was in that room. They asked about decorating her room and being new to the dating world, I said "yes." When they  had finished in about 30 seconds, I went down to discover they had just thrown mylar confetti around the room. Even when I removed the carpet and replaced it and the floor padding, we still find mylar in books, furniture etc every so often.

She knew something was up immediately when I told her she should "clean her room." She got so excited when I said that. She kept trying to guess whose voice was on the phone. I don't know if the boy had someone else ask to speak to me and then got on the phone or if he was nervous and she wasn't expecting to hear her friends voice but she thought he sounded like my friends son who is a neighbor.

She had two events to cheer at that day so he had several times when he could come and ask her. She rushed home after school thinking it may be there before her first event. She seemed a bit disappointed when she went down and there wasn't anything there. She had a friend come over between events and when she arrived home, I rushed down into her dark room with the camera and video so I could get her expression coming into the room.

However, since she had a friend, she didn't want to act over excited as there is the "cool" factor but she was excited.

She was really surprised by who was asking her only because she is good friends with the boy and she didn't recognize his voice on the phone when she answered it. She is very excited about going with someone she is friends with as she knows they will have fun. She is excited her first date is a dance and that it is with a friend.

He asked her with a large bag of popcorn and a cute note saying, "Now that I've Buttered you up, I'll POP the question." It is interesting that we discussed ways of answering "her date" the night before and one of the ideas we came up went along perfectly with his "popcorn" way of asking.

In fact, when he came to deliver the bag and put it in her room with his sister, I got a smile on my face when they came in and he was holding the popcorn as I knew we could actually use one of our ideas for the reply.

You can see her video above getting asked and tomorrow, I will post about how we replied to him. Now, we just have to figure out what she will wear. It isn't as formal a dance as prom and some wear shorter dresses so we will have to figure out what she prefers so I can alter it as needed as most dresses need some alteration to fit well. You will see what we decide as I am sure I will post about her first date.

Fixing Scratches, Tears, Rips and Removing Stickers off Book Covers

I have used this for years and have never thought to write a blog about it. As with any child, my children have ripped books on occasion and some books that we really love, got used often and would get wear cracks in them from being opened and read so many times. 

Also, we have purchased may books on clearance and they have stickers they put on the front and sometimes, it is really difficult to remove those stickers or price tags off the fronts of backs of some of our favorite books. 

Over the years, I have figured the best way to get those off. I use mineral spirits or Kerosene to remove left over stickers on books or game boxes and other toys. 

You don't need much on a paper towel to get them off. If you watch the video at the bottom, near the end, I show how I got the sticky off the back of the book in seconds with no film left. It works wonders. I also used this to get tar off my car and trailer as well. Click here to read a post about that. Anything that is sticky, this will work on. If you get gum on a book, this would also work to take it off. Don't use lots of it at a time or it will saturate the book pages or cover and cause it to smell. Use the least amount possible and if you need more, then try more. Don't use a cotton ball as that holds too much. A q-tip would work as well. Paper towel works the best in my opinion. 

For gluing pages, if some of the page is ripped up but not ripped off, use a glue stick. I have tried Elmer's or another liquid glue in the past and it will drip down if you get excess and can glue pages together. If you use a paste, sometimes you will get clumps and it will leave a bump when it dries. Glue stick is the best in my opinion using a thin coating. Press it down with your finger starting at the non-ripped edge and smooth it towards the ripped edge gently as it will force any air bubbles out of the area creating a good seal, similar to moving the wallpaper paste towards the edge of the paper when you are wall-papering.

If there is some paper on the top of the page ripped off and the color is missing, if you know me at all, you will know that I am going to say, "Use Sharpies!" They are in so many different colors that you can usually find one to match closely to the color of the item you are trying to match.

 In this post here, I used Sharpies to repair the paint on my trailer before I waxed it. 

 Here is one where I use it to finish an antique chalk board. 

Here is one where we have friends sign the wall.

Here is one where I use Sharpie on Furniture.

Here is where I show how I smudge it on shiny furniture to fix scratches.

I just take the closest matching sharpie and try to recreate the direction of the original artwork. I show in the video at the bottom in the second half how I fill in scratches and then smudge it with my finger to make it blend in more.

I wouldn't suggest using a non-permanent marker as you wouldn't want the ink to come off on the kids hands when they are reading or playing with the book. 

When you look at the picture of my drawing green on the picture below, you can see where I filled in the cracks with a brown marker next to it. I probably could have used a tan color marker on the lighter area but one of my beautiful Princesses ended up with some of my more colorful markers which left me down on the tan colors. 

You can see the lines when you are a few inches away from the book as I am when taking the picture of the green marker but when you take the book back to reading length, you no longer see the brown lines as distinctly and at a quick glance, anyone reading the book won't look at length at the pictures either especially when you have finger puppets involved! ha ha

When you have a larger area that needs filling in, sometimes if there is a patter and several different colors, I do my best to draw the pattern and fill in as I can to make it the least bit noticeable as possible. 

I have used this technique for puzzle pieces that were missing in the past and you can hardly tell that the piece was made to fit a missing piece. Here is post one on that. Here is post two for that. I use Sharpies to do that as well. 

You can see on those two posts, that depending on the color, you can make it so you can't even tell, or if it is an odd color, it is a bit more difficult and I have had to match it with paints sometimes.

If you have a pattern going one direction, always try to go with that angle and pattern so it looks similar.You can see that on the bottom picture. The dirt had some scrapes on it and I used the brown to keep the texture look by not using it to fill in all the scrapes. You can also see me do that near the end of the video below.  

You can pick up books used on several online sites but I like looking on local sites by posting the book I may be looking for on the site to see if anyone local has it first. That way I don't have to pay shipping. 

If I can't find it online locally, you can also post on your facebook to see if anyone has one they want to get rid of. If that doesn't work, check local second hand stores and yard sales. Also, sometimes the local library replaces book that are popular or sometimes outdated books. 
 
One year at a library yard-sale, I got the entire "Nancy Drew" and "The Hardy Boys" sets for $25 and the "Clifford" hard back set for less. I got my "Dr. Seuss" set from a friends whose children were older. Sometimes people may not think about getting rid of their books until someone asks. Most people would rather see their things go to someone they know and that they see would appreciate it rather than just donating it to a store. They make some money or often times, they will just donate them to you. a few years ago, I gave away three banana boxes of books to a friend who was homeschooling. They were informative books but my kids were past that stage and I wanted the space for books more age appropriate for them. I was happy they would be used by someone who would appreciate them. 

Fixing up the entire book probably would have been about 2 to 3 minutes tops if I hadn't been making a video and talking about it. I didn't think of making the video before I had already fixed the worst page. By buying used books, I was able to have a large library that the girls could pick from for all the different stages they were in as at one point I have five children in five different school from preschool to high school. 

Acquiring the age appropriate books for all those ages could have been expensive but I paid $.25 to $2 a book rather than the $5-$15 for each book they sold in the school adds and book sales. I posted about my "home library" here. 

As you can see, we have a love of books. I am trying to whittle them down but somehow, I find another cute one and I think it has passed on to my daughter who married a man who LOVES to read and loves books. There are worse things. :-)        

Getting Muical Book and Replacement Batteries for Cheap

This may be a stupid blog but I think it is one that someone may actually look up how to do. I want to share how I get my batteries for watches, music books, sing along, read along and game books inexpensively and also how to replace the batteries. I always check the clearance baskets at the grocery store to see if they have any in there as batteries are an expiring item that doesn't always sell well at grocery stores, they often go on clearance before they get near expiration 

The local dollar stores and the Family Dollar stores often have smaller batteries. Many times, they have multiple batteries of one size for up to 8 for a dollar. Ace hardware sometimes has a blister pack with 6 or 8 different batteries and three to six of each size for $2 when they have their dollar events.

If I can't find the small battery I am looking for at those three stores, I have found the size of battery needed for these books at the dollar store included in an "entry alarm" that is in the tools section. It comes with three of these batteries in the alarm for a $1 so even then, it isn't that expensive to replace them.

If all those don't work, I have found the Associated Food stores have their batteries much cheaper than Walmart. Sometimes even half as much. I rarely buy watch or toy batteries there as I can usually find them other places. I have even gotten used watches at the second hand store for $1 that are working and take the working battery out and put it into the watch I want to wear when buying that battery at Walmart would be $6. I saved $5 by doing it that way.

Every music or sing-a-long book I have ever purchased, I have bought used. I mostly get them in good condition from second hand stores but have a few from yard sales. Sometimes they are still working but most times, the batteries are dead and that is why they are getting rid of them. I have a good collection of them. With the girls "collecting" different characters while growing up, we collected a few that way as giftsl. You will see in the picture above that Princess One collects Oz and we have one of those. Princess Two collected "Pooh." We have one of those. Princess Three collects "Snoopy" items and there aren't a ton of things with that as there are with Sesame Street and Disney so there aren't any for her collection. But, Princess Four collects "Muppets" and there are those and Princess Five collects "Warner Brothers" and there isn't as much that way either.

The picture above isn't including any holiday ones we have as those are stored with the holiday decorations but I think we only have three for Christmas. It is funny that the kids still play with them when they are out.

To change out the batteries, most of the newer once will have a screw right on the top of the plastic piece holding the buttons to push. Some of the older ones, you have to open the book and look on the inside of the plastic piece. There are a few older ones that you actually have to peel the plastic off to find the battery unit but that is really rare. You will need a small tip on your Phillips screwdriver usually but I have shared before how I got the small screwdriver set at the dollar store for a dollar. It is VERY handy and I use it all the time.

Just unscrew the little screw. I sometimes put it on a piece of masking tape when I take it out so that I won't lose it as it is a very small screw and if you drop it, it may never be found. Once that is out, you put fingers on either side of the holder and there are usually little ridges on the sides to help you get a grip on it. Pull away from the book holding onto the plastic piece or you may rip it off the book.

Once you have the compartment open, you can use the tip of the screw driver to get the batteries out. Replace with the new batteries and once you push the compartment back into place, it should work.

If it doesn't, there could be a few things wrong. First, it could be there was some acid leaking from one of the old batteries. If that is the case, use a damp paper towel to wipe off the acid being careful not to get any of it on your skin as it can burn. Then, I use the tip of the screwdriver to scrap the metal contacts inside the bottom of the battery hole to make sure there is nothing on them to keep it from working.

Next, it could be that you just don't have the battery shoved in the hole deeply enough to touch the metal contact. In this case, I sometimes take a regular flat head small screw driver and pry up the contact metal on the bottom of the hole so that it is a bit higher and can touch the battery. This usually works in flashlights as well as after time of batteries pushing down on the spring, sometimes it needs to be pulled out some.

The last thing it can be is that some book or toys make the screw the contact finish for the batteries to get to the unit. If the screw isn't screwed in, the toy won't work. This is a safety feature probably so that children can't get to the batteries and choke on them as they can kill kids with the acid they release or choke them on the way down. This is another good reason NOT to lose the little screw as if you don't screw the little screw back in, the toy won't work.

If it still doesn't work, some of the wires or components may have been destroyed by leaking acid from a battery or being dropped.

Hopefully, the video near the top will give enough instruction that you will be able to figure it out.

Banola - Granana - Fruitola - You Decide

I eat granola most day. I am gluten free so I have gotten into a simple routine for most of my meals except for dinner. I usually eat granola, a banana, maybe some berries and yogurt for breakfast. I may snack on granola during the day as well.


There are three types of granola that they sell at Walmart that are Gluten free that I enjoy.  One is by "Vans" which is a sticky more clumped granola with cranberries in it. I usually eat this when snacking during a movie or something as I can get my hands sticky eating it. It isn't really good for snacking if you don't want to get sticky hands.They sell a "Chex Mix" one that I don't enjoy but Princess Four likes it.
 
The other brand is "Natures Path" and I really enjoy this brand. It is a little more but you also get more as it doesn't have the weight of the honey making it heavy and it has dehydrated berries and yogurt pieces in it so you do get more as the fruit is actually freeze dried and doesn't have much weight. 
 
It has a good flavor and texture as well. They just came out with a new flavor which I don't enjoy as much as the Berry. The Cranberries one is just under $4. The Chex on is between $3 and $4 if I remember right and the Berry one is near five in cost.

Princess Five likes my granola even though she isn't gluten free. I saw this huge can of granola for about $12 and thought it would be a good way to get her her own stash for cheaper than the gluten free bags.

I got it and she tried it but it was more like a hot cereal as it didn't have anything in it to bind them together into a snack. It was OK on yogurt but she likes to snack on mine as well. 


I have been cleaning out the garage a little at a time recently trying to rotate my storage and freezers and with that, I clean out the kitchen cupboards and she hadn't eaten much out of the can so I called Princess One who makes her own granola and asked what she would do to make the granola more enjoyable for Princess Five. 


She suggested that I make it sweeter and clumpier by adding brown sugar and or honey and so I used a cookie sheet and put brown sugar in with the granola and "candied" some. I had her taste and try it when she arrived home at lunch and she enjoyed that. She told me to go ahead and make the rest that way. I did that but after heating it, a thought came into my mind. 
 
I invented something today that will be something we make from now on. I thought of ways to make it more like a trail mix and I noticed three ripe bananas on the counter. I thought to myself, "She loves dried bananas and granola, I think I will mix the two." Check out my video at the top to see more details. 
 
I have to tell you she said it smelled "Heavenly" when she came home and started eating it right then while it was still very wet. She kept snacking on it all evening until bed and wants to take some to school for a snack tomorrow. We have a HIT on our hands. It is "Delicious!" to quote her. 


I used the silicon fruit leather trays and basically mixed three bananas with five cups of granola. I will probably make some gluten free for myself using gluten free oats, several types of nuts and some freeze dried fruit and maybe I will even dehydrate some yogurt to throw in like the yogurt I purchase. 

I dried it at 125 degrees for about 18 hours flipping it and taking it off the sheets and just putting it on the non-stick air trays, (Click here to see how I make them.) and it clumped and looked great, has a great texture and I tried some of the nuts in the mix and it was good. I don't usually like dried banana so it was interesting that I do like this. 

I want to try peaches instead of bananas when I make mine as I LOVE dried peaches. I bet even if you used canned peaches, it would be good. 

I think the key to this was the roasting them before hand in coconut oil so they are a bit crunchy. This way they don't get soft and mushy when you add the fruit. I don't think I need to add the sugar next time but since I had already added it before coming up with the idea, it has that but I think it would be sweet enough without added sugar and just using ripe fruit. 

I don't know how long it would store because it has oils in it but if you kept it in the fridge, I am guessing it would store for many months. Storing it in the freezer would be even better. 

The more I think about it, the more excited I get. I have some dried cranberries that need to be used and you can only add so much to salads. I am going to try that and maybe even a few chocolate / yogurt chips after it is dried to mix it up.

I am grateful for inspiration. Now we have a new treat she likes, it is easy to make and in the end it is cheaper than purchasing mine for us both. I will let you know how the gluten free versions goes. 

Princess and the Amazing Technicolor Apple Trees

I know the title for the blog post is a bit weird, but I will share how it ties in with the post. If you remember last fall, I shared that I had a bumper crop of apples. Not only was it a bumper crop, it was the largest yield of fruit I have ever gotten from those trees in 20+ years. 
 
Also, I shared that my neighbor just over the fence has trees not 20 feet away and they got a very small crop and they didn't taste good. My apples tasted wonderful, had no bugs and were prolific. 

This year, I didn't get one piece of fruit off my three plum trees, no cherries, no pears, no nectarines and on my three apple trees, there may be 20 apples total and buggy at that. 

We will not have any apples this year and none to dry. In the 20+ years we have been here, we have had a few years where the plums and other fruit were a bit scarce but NEVER have we not gotten apples. 

Late storms this year caused all the buds to die. Due to that, we got no fruit.

Princess Five was commenting the other day about how sad she is that there are no apples on the trees. She and her friends always pick them and eat them as they are WONDERFUL apples and everyone asks why my apples taste so great. 

I have no idea other than my mulch pit is within about 6 feet of the trees, which may give them nutrients and make them taste better. 

I mentioned to Princess Five that I think God was trying to tell us last year that we would have "famine" this year by blessing us with a bumper crop. 

She knows the story of "Joseph" and Pharaohs dream about seven years of plenty and during that time, they needed to store up all they could so that when the seven years of famine came, they would have sufficient for their needs. 

Here is my post from last fall sharing about how I had already filled most of my Tupperware and still had lots of apples to dry. While pruning and harvesting the apples, I saw a double rainbow. The trees were in "Technicolor" while I was harvesting them. 

I do believe that God was letting me know that he blessed me with a bounteous harvest through the double rainbows and now, looking back, it was a miracle that we got so many apples. I filled every Tupperware I had, then I filled FOUR five gallon buckets with gallon bags. I still have all you see in these pictures and I gave away LOTS for Christmas as I get requests from people asking for them for Christmas. 


I thought it would be a nice gesture for Princess Five to take a bag of "apples for the teacher" on the first day as they are stressed not having the school done and may have to teach in different buildings around town for a week. When I filled these bags for her teachers, I was amazed at how blessed we are to have more apples now after giving many away than we get most years total. 

God has blessed us greatly. In a way, I also feel like it was a blessing that I didn't get any fruit this year. You know how my July was and how horrible I feel. I think if I had the fruit, I would have forced myself to use it and right now, I just don't feel up to it. I barely slept last night and woke with a storm migraine and I had to take pills over and over today to keep it under control. My feet have started to swell and hurt again and I actually gave gratitude in my prayer tonight that we didn't get fruit this year. 

Sometimes, things that may look like a sad or horrible situation at times can really be a blessing in disguise. 

I am grateful that I was able to get so much fruit last year when I was feeling better and that I could dry it for use this year. 

So, now you can understand my title about "Princess Five and the Amazing Technicolor Apple Trees."

The Nightmare of It All - Stongyloides Pelodera - New Strain - Horsehair, Nematomorpha, Gordian Worm - Part 8

SEE THE OTHER POSTS AS I KNOW IT WASN'T FROM PERU NOW. I DID A REWRITE AND NOW I KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY AN INSECT PARASITE CALLED HORSEHAIR, NEMATOMORPHA OR GORDIAN WORM. IT IS SIMILAR TO HOOK WORM AND THREAD WORM. SEE MY OTHER POSTS FOR SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT ETC. TYPE IN "PARASITE" OR "HORSEHAIR" INTO SEARCH BOX TO FIND THE OTHER POSTS.

I have been so busy lately that I have not been soaking my hands and feet in peroxide like I had been at least once a week for a few months now. With that, I have been on two types of medication where I alter taking one for a week, then going to the other for a week. 

I still have MAJOR heart pain/ burning in my lungs daily, rashes that keep moving, feeling things crawling in my lungs, throat and gut and a dry cough. One day about a week ago, I had been having the rash move around as I hadn't been keeping medication on it but just using the diatomaceous earth to try and keep it down. They seem to come out and test the waters and when they poke out and feel the powder, they just move to somewhere that doesn't have powder. 

I picture them like a worm coming out of the soil. If it feels something, it goes back in and comes out in a better spot. If you chop off part of a worm or it gets damaged, the worm doesn't die. In my head, these worms work like that. They are a round worm family worm and are called, "Thread Worm" for a reason. This is my own thinking and not clinical but it is the only explanation for why they are still thriving when I have been using stuff on the rashes for over 6 months.

I have been trying every day to get something off my list as there are so many things on the list and taking care of this was pushed to the side. I think if I focus on not feeling well, I feel worse so I try to not think about it and get something done that I can feel good about for the day. 

I have also been trying to spend more time with Princess Five as school starts soon and with Cheer and being a Student body officer and attending a new building, I think she will be very busy and typically, my girls, Jr. year has been their most difficult so I think I won't be seeing much of her soon. 

So, I have been keeping busy doing a family history project as well that I will share later but just know that I have been horrible at doing anything for the parasite problem. 

With that, I have been praying for a way to diagnose it as more of my neighbors have symptoms and random people I meet in town also have symptoms. I am not even sure how it comes up but I met a lady last week whose name ironically is Kat. She has this so bad that she has rashes up and down her limbs. She was recently hospitalized with pneumonia but she said it was so thick it was hard for them to clear up. These parasites cause hard formations of keratin. She just started with they eye symptoms and was told the same thing about "floating" threads of keratin in her eye fluid. She also has the joint pain and I found it interesting that her pneumonia was treated with Steroids which cause the worms to get worse and that is when her eye symptoms started. 

We exchanged numbers and I am going to call and see if I can take pictures of her rashes for my blog. They were so horrible you could see the parasites in some of the spots. 

Anyway, I have been praying. I had a dream this week. I was in a basement trying to get a cat / poodle mix from someone and I kept saying, "It has to be litter box trained as I don't want to get the parasites from it." The "kapoodle" which is what I named it after waking from the dream, was actually very cute but it made me realize it is a cat problem but can also be a dog problem. So, I researched "small dog and Thread worm" and after a few clicks came up with "Pelodera Strogyloides." I also found a few sites talking about how they can be diagnosed on a blood agar. I am thinking that I may try and make my own or see if our local lab can do some testing that way for me. 

The main problem with this type is it gets in the hair follicle and if you go back to the first symptoms I had about this (click here for that post) you will see that was the very first symptom I wrote about getting little bumps on my skin, hair follicle. I also mention my dreams in that post. 

It is a "thread worm" so it does have the three stages and all the other symptoms of thread worm but is isn't usually seen in the US where I am from. The only real article I could find that stated locality was about dogs in Norway. On several sites, it says it is in dogs, and cats and in humans. . .  I think we have ourselves an epidemic here! 

It is so interesting that just today, I was leading the music in church and I noticed two women in the congregation whose hair is almost gone. One lives almost directly behind my house. I wondered what would make them bald like that. This parasite can cause hair loss which is interesting because I just posted about that thinking it was the medication but even when I stopped the medication for a week, I am shedding like no other. In fact, today at church a friend was walking out of the building with me and pulled off at least 20 hairs off the back of my shirt and commented she should have sat by me to pull all the hairs off earlier. I had pulled off at least 100 this morning and during the three hours at church, and in the car on the way home, I pulled off two more. 

I have to say I am a "dream believer" as this is the third dream I have had about these parasites. The first I learned I had three parasites and one was a "cat" parasite and was affecting my head. That dream led me to go to the Dr. and then do a "search online" for throat sores, lung parasites and high white count" That led me to "thread worms."

The second, I was standing in the spot where the hospital laboratory is but it was a field. I was going about doing things that I do in my normal life and a guy in the lab helped me diagnose this parasite. In the dream it looked like little orange macaroni. I guess if you stained the parasites with iodine, they would look like little noodles. Also, two tigers were coming towards me. (Huge cats!) I was terrified that these tigers were coming towards me but when they got in front of me, they smiled and the one turned into a woman I know named "Miki" and she was harmless. 

I realized that this thing is bigger than me and that I shouldn't be afraid of it as I know God is in charge he will help find the way to diagnose it and that I am helping friends in the process. Miki lives next to a lady with a million cats and the lady leaves for long lengths of time and the cats are outside cats and I am sure she doesn't worm them. By figuring out this parasite, how to easily diagnose it and hopefully, how to treat it, I will be helping many friends and family members in the process. 

This last "Kapoodle" dream really helped me focus my search down to a few minutes and also ways to perhaps diagnose it more quickly and easily for people rather than long expensive or invasive tests. I will let you know how it goes. 

Oh, also, I started using the horse "apple flavored" ointment of Ivermectin on my rashes. it stays on better than the yeast cream / liquid medication mix I was making. Who knew? I read about someone online using it for her female parts where she was having rashes reoccurring and thought, it would probably be the best thing for rashes on any part of the body. I was grateful to her for sharing her embarrassing situation online so others could be helped and who knows how many people she will be helping as I prefer it over the cream for night time use. It is a bit waxy feeling to use during the day so I just wash my hands with peroxide and then rub some of the albendazole cream with yeast cream on my hands during the day if I have a rash flair on my hands but when I soak them regularly in the 3% hydrogen peroxide, I haven't had that problem. I just need to keep soaking them more regularly! 

Just wanted to give you an update and share that tidbit. Another plus, is it smells like apples and I think it smells good so if you have a rash, try this. I am going to call my male neighbor that has the rash in his hair and suggest he try this for it. Soaking your hair with peroxide rags doesn't feel very good as you can't get it near your eyes and his rash moves like mine does so perhaps this will help him as well. 

Lots to be grateful for. Keep praying we can come up with a quick test for it so I can finally figure out how to cure it!

Cinderella's New Step Sister - Introducing Grace

With all the crazy things that went on in July, something got left "behind." Actually, many things probably got left off the blog list. 
 
With the internet being down much of the time and with an international family reunion, my family camping at the lake, girls camp and the play among other things, posting about what an amazing job Princess Five did in the play has been waiting patiently on the list of things needing to get done! 
 
I was SO blessed to have Princess Four off of work for much of the month due to holidays etc, she was such a great help to me. 

Since I was in charge of girls camp, I couldn't very well miss the first day. I was the only one that knew what to do with the decorations and bags we were giving out. 
 
Princess Five tried out for the play months ago (click here for that) and they kept changing the date as "Princes Charming" was leaving as a missionary so they waited on the date until he knew the date he was leaving. This caused us great strife as they had already changed the date a few times. 
 
In the end, it was a great blessing that I didn't try out for the play. This was the first time I hadn't been in the community play with the girls ever. I have always figured since I would be driving them to practice, I should be in the play. Click here for the play we did a few years ago, Oliver.
 
I was SO grateful that I wasn't in it when I found out they scheduled it directly over girls camp. 

I was sad that Princess Five would be missing the first day of camp due to a performance but was grateful that Princess Four was around to assist in getting her there later that night. 
 
They had a split cast. Princess Five asked to do the first two performances. I asked her sister to take some video and pictures. I haven't actually found that sd card and hope I didn't lose it in the mix of girls camp chaos. 
 
She did accidentally erase the "sisters lament" which is the top video above. I was sad as that was my very favorite scene of the show. Many that saw the show also thought it was the highlight with all the humor in it. 

 
I think the make-up person "Aubrey" did a great job on her make-up as they wanted to make her have a long, pointed nose. I think she still looks beautiful but her acting is the highlight for sure. 

The second video above is "A lovely night" with Cinderella, her sisters and step-mother. I love the harmony at the end and Princess Five is hilarious when the mice come out. You can't help but laugh. 

The other three videos are great acting on her part as well but my favorite two are the top two. If you are going to pick and choose, I would suggest those two. 

I have one question, "Does this dress make my butt look big?" ha ha.