Two Authors That I Adore

These two authors wrote children's books, some picture books and some chapter books. They were both artist, too, and illustrated their own works. The authors are Robert Lawson and Lois Lenski.

They both have strong themes in their books of what gives Americans their greatness: qualities like being God revering, having grit, working hard, along with values like equality, freedom, and holding truth and integrity tightly.

Lois Lenski and Robert Lawson are both Newberry Medal winners. Lois Lenski won the Newberry Medal for Strawberry Girl in 1946. Two of her other books were Newberry honor selections.

Lois Lenski wrote and illustrated the Small series of picture books: 

Cowboy Small, 

The Little Auto, 

The Little Airplane, 

The Little Family, 

The Little Farm, 

The Little Fire Engine, 

The Little Sailboat, 

The Little Train, 

Papa Small, 

and Policeman Small.

I really like these Little books. They have a lot of information that young children are capable of learning and understanding about fields and occupations that young children usually find interesting. She tells it in cute stories that are adorable.

She embarked on writing a series of books about the childhoods of children growing up in different regions of the USA. She started with Bayou Suzette in 1943. In 1946 she won a Newberry Medal for Strawberry Girl. It is hard to find the books in this series. 

They include: 

Bayou Suzette, 

Strawberry Girl, 

Blue Ridge Billy, 

Judy's Journey, 

Boom Town Boy, 

Cotton In My Sack, 

Texas Tomboy, 

Prairie School, 

Mama Hattie's Girl, 

Corn Farm Boy, 

San Francisco Boy, 

Flood Friday, 

House Boat Girl, 

Coal Camp Girl, 

Shoo Fly Girl, 

To Be A Logger, 

and Deer Valley Girl. 

Lois Lenski also wrote several historical fictions including: 

Phoebe Fairchild: Her Story (Newberry Honor), 

A-Going to the Westward, 

Bound Girl of Cobble Hill, 

Ocean-Born Mary,  

Blue Berry Corners, 

Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison (Newberry Honor), 

and Puritan Adventure.

Robert Lawson, born in 1892, became an illustrator before he became an author. He illustrated such classics as The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, which is a favorite of mine.

His first book that he wrote was published in 1939: Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin By His Good Mouse Amos.

He wrote several historical fictions in the same vein as Ben and Me, with pets that tell the story of their significant historical figure pal. Most of these books have been hard for me to find at libraries. They include:

Ben and Me
I Discover Columbus 
Mr. Revere and I
Captain Kidd's Cat

Robert Lawson won the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in They Were Strong and They Were Good in 1941, which he also wrote. He is the only author to win both the Caldecott Medal and the Newberry Medal. (Caldecott Medals are for illustrations and Newberry Medals are for writing.)

He won the Newberry Medal in 1945 for Rabbit Hill.

His other works include:

Just For Fun: A Collection of Stories and Verses 
Watchwords of Liberty 
Country Colic 
Mr. Wilmer
At That Time
Mr. Twigg's Mistake
Robbut: A Tale of Tails
Dick Whittington and His Cat
The Fabulous Flight
Smeller Martin 
McWhinney's Jaunt
Edward, Hoppy and Joe
The Tough Winter
The Great Wheel 

Having said all that, now I come to the catalyst for writing this blog post. I recently told my dear friend about these two authors that I adore. That following week she found these four books on the discard rack at her local library and she gave them to me!

Just look at these beautiful volumes!

Blue Berry Corners:

Coal Camp Girl:

Boomtown Boy:

Mr. Revere and I:

I am so delighted! Thank God for good friends!

And just so you can see the other Robert Lawson book that I have (my sister gave me this one):

Sources for my information on this post:

Wikipedia Page about the Newberry Medal 

Goodreads Page on Lois Lenski's regional books

Wikipedia Page on Lois Lenski 

Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections Video on Lois Lenski collection 

Open Road Media video on Lois Lenski

Nocloo.com Page about Robert Lawson

Librarything.com page on Robert Lawson

Abqlibrary.org  all the Caldecott Medal winners

The Girl's Have Dresses Finally!

 

It took me a while. I didn't finish these dresses in February. I barely finished them in March.

My 20 minutes of sewing a day program gets pushed to the wayside more often than not. I did finish a sewing project in February. What I did was sew buttons onto a shirt that I made for Mr. In The Mid-west years ago. 

This shirt has been sitting in a pile of unfinished sewing projects for over SEVEN YEARS! A long time ago I made matching shirts for myself and Mr. In The Mid-west. But Mr. In The Mid-west never got to wear his because I didn't have enough matching buttons for both shirts. I put the buttons that I did have on my shirt. I wore my shirt out. It was stained and faded. In February I took all the buttons off of my shirt and sewed them onto Mr. In The Mid-west's shirt. It was my Valentine's gift for him this year. I was so happy to see him wearing the shirt I made for him with my own hands. He liked it and even wore it to Church!

 As the month of March drew to a close I began to cram. The last days of March saw me sewing much more than 20 minutes a day. I was determined to finish the doll dresses before April came.

As the dresses got closer to completion it became harder to put them down. I didn't want to quit sewing. I was so close to being able to put the dresses on the dolls!

I finished the last stitches. The final touch was to put the snap buttons on the back. 

The following morning my daughter helped me by posing with the dolls for my Etsy listing. She loves every doll I make. I feel a little bad selling them. She does have her own doll that I made for her a couple years ago, besides the multiple store bought dolls she has. A girl can never have too many doll, I guess! 

Check out my Etsy listing!

Keep The Love Kindled

 At our Church sometimes people donate stuff to pass out among the members. In February a lady brought whole boxes of brand new, never used Valentine cards. I had this idea come into my mind, "What if I get a bunch of these Valentine cards and put one into Mr. In The Mid-west's lunch box every day?" He was about to start a new job and I was so excited for him! I wanted to show my support and do as much as I could to boost his confidence.

As wives we all have to know our own man. It takes some time and studying. But, year after year you learn and get to know him better and better. 

I am married to a sensitive soul and I knew he would feel so special to get a card in his lunch box every day. I had almost enough cards to send him one everyday for his first 3 weeks on the new job. I had to make a couple hand made cards to finish out the week.

Here is the art I made for one of his cards.

Speaking of art, this is a cartoon I drew for one of my boys birthday card this month. This idea is not original to me. I was inspired by a cartoon I saw on Pinterest. 

My 7 year old drew a version, too:

His dragon is so darling! I think his drawing is adorable! These are the kinds of things that make mothering fun.

Homemade Noodles! | Recipe

 

Thanksgiving is approaching! It the best holiday of the year! 

With Thanksgiving comes a lot of food preparation. So much cooking! Last week I made 5 batches of noodles. One of these years I'm going to have to invest in a pasta machine. I'm sure it would make the job go a lot faster!

Does anyone else have egg noodles as part of their traditional Thanksgiving meal? For most of my growing up years my family never had noodles for Thanksgiving. One year a guest that we were having over said that Thanksgiving dinner wouldn't be complete without egg noodles. My mother wanted to accommodate their tradition so she found a recipe for egg noodles in her Good Housekeeping cook book. 

Her Good Housekeeping cook book is like a cooking encyclopedia for the kitchen. It is a few inches thick with step by step illustrations; teaching everything from gravy making to bread baking, from how to cut a multi-layer cake to how to prepare a lobster, how to carve everything from ham to leg of lamb, humble things like biscuits and not so humble things like blinis with caviar. This is the kind of book that every new Bride needs!

It is the book that my Mother turned to when she wanted to learn how to make noodles. The recipe was good and so were the instructions. It walked a complete newbie through the process without using any special equipment. Then I tried my hand at it. My noodles were thin and ribbon-y and my mom's were thick and dumpling like. 

The consensus was that I should be the noodle maker. And I still am today! Whenever we go to my family's for Thanksgiving I bring homemade noodles.

Homemade Egg Noodles

2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup water

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 TBS. oil

1 tsp. salt

In a large bowl combine 1 cup flour and remaining ingredients. With mixer at low speed, beat for 2 minutes.

With wooden spoon, stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface, knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.

Cover dough and let rest 30 minutes.

Cut dough in half. On floured surface roll dough out to a 20"×14" rectangle, then fold in half crosswise, and in half again crosswise, (flouring between the layers), to form a 5"×14" rectangle. Cut into strips.

Unfold strips and lay on a cloth towel. 

Repeat rolling, folding, cutting, and unfolding with remaining dough.

Let strips dry at least 2 hrs. before cooking. Continue drying the noodles until crisp to store for later. Noodles can be stored in airtight containers or bags in the freezer at this point.

Cook 5-8 minutes in boiling broth, unless you want to drain the cooking liquid, in that case just use boiling water.

Scarlet Thread

 

Joshua 2:18+19

Behold, when we come into the land,

thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: 

and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.

And it shall be, that whosoever 

shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his blood shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his blood shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him.

Looking at this Gladiolus I kept thinking of the scarlet thread from the Bible story about the spies. That scarlet thread saved Rahab's life and the lives of her family members. 

We can be saved by a "scarlet thread," too. The blood of Jesus is our scarlet thread. His blood will attone for our sins. If we place our faith in Him, He covers us in His own righteousness.

His blood will protect our soul from judgement. Hell is the judgement we deserve because of our sins. When Jesus's blood is applied to our account we are shielded from this judgement.

Dear Reader, have you trusted Jesus as your Saviour? Do you believe His blood is sufficient to save your soul? If you have never before trusted Jesus as your Saviour, please do today! 

He will save you. He said, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Trusting Jesus is easy. Easy as taking a drink of water.

Easy as walking through a door. Jesus said,

"I am the door: by me if any man enter in,

 he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, 

and find pasture."
John10:9 

Easy as eating a piece of bread. Jesus said,

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

John 6:51

Jesus did all the work for your salvation. He offers you eternal life as a gift. Who pays for a gift? The giver does all the paying. If the recipient has to pay for the gift it ceases to be a gift. Not only does the Bible describe salvation as a gift, it describes it as a free gift, just to emphasize the fact that He paid the price and we pay nothing. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Romans 5:18 

Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

Jesus offers mankind eternal life, but He doesn't force anyone to take this gift. The individual must receive it or reject it. Do you receive this gift? Do you believe the record of God?

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself:

 he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; 

because he believeth not the record 

that God gave of his Son.

And this is the record, that God hath given to us

 eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

1 John 5:10+11

If you don't believe Him you are calling God a liar. God says that Jesus sacrificed His perfect blood to attone for your sins. Do you believe Him, or not?

Jesus died for everyone and that includes you! 

1 Timothy 4:10

 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.

I will leave you with this one last thought:

God loves you so much that he'd rather die than see you go to Hell.................

And he proved it on the cross.

Romans 10:9
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the

 Lord Jesus, 

and shalt believe in thine heart

 that God hath raised him from the dead,

 thou shalt be saved.

Skin Salve

In this blog post, I tell the story of my first experience making herbal oil infusions and how I used the infusions to make a healing salve.
Come along to hear all about it!

 I am using these jars of calendula infused oil and plantain infused oil to make a skin salve.

I hope it will be a good recipe for diaper rash and minor skin problems like bites and scrapes.

Calendula has antibiotic properties and promotes healing of the skin. It is real good for cold sores and chicken pox lesions.

Plantain is one of the best herbs for stings. Anytime I am stung by a bee I pick the closest plantain leaf, chew it quickly, and smear the crushed leaf onto the sting area. It relives the pain immediately and keeps the tissue from swelling. It really works! Without the plantain I swell up for two days and itch really bad after the swelling has gone down.

Here is the story of these herbal infusions that I have:

Three years ago, back in 2019, during the summer I grew calendula. I picked the flower heads to dry. By the end of summer I had a good quantity of flower heads. I learned about using the calendula to make an oil infusion to be used in an ointment. I decided to try this technique. I, also, wanted to make a plantain oil infusion because I knew plantain's properties would compliment those of calendula flowers.

I bought some organic cold pressed extra virgin oil especially for this purpose. I dried a bunch of plantain leafs and packed them into a quart jar. I packed my calendula flowers into a pint jar. Then I poured the oil over the herbs.

I remember thinking about how long I would have to wait for the infusions to complete. It would 8 weeks before I could use them. So long!

But, the time flew by. I had other projects to be working on and a baby to get ready for. One thing led to the next. The baby was born, a few months later we moved, that whole year (2020) we were traveling for work, once we got back home we settled into life. I was busy. There was another baby to get ready for, a 1st grader to homeschool, dresses to sew,.......

The oil infusions got pushed to the back of the cabinet and we're forgotten.

Three years later I am finally pulling them out and putting them to use. I am so excited to be making my first ointment with home grown herbs!

This is my recipe:

2 1/2 cups of Plantain Infused Oil

1 1/2 cup Calendula Infused Oil

1 cup Raw Bee's Wax

1 T. Shea Butter*

*The Shea butter was sent to me as a sample when I ordered my bee's wax. I didn't have a use for it and threw it in with the melting oils just to put it to good use.

Melt the oils and wax together, gently.

Pour the hot mixture into clean jar or containers.

You can see my messy work station:

I plan on using this ointment for a lip balm, chapped skin, bug bites, minor cuts and scrapes, razor burn, and diaper rashes. I got some of this ointment on my hands while I was working with it and I can tell you that it is definitely moisturizing!

Initially, I thought the extra time would make these infusions more potent, but the more I think about it, I wonder if they lose thier efficacy over time. I guess I will just have to experiment. At any rate this ointment is going to be a great lip balm and moisturizer.

Can you relate with how time marches on? I can hardly believe that three years have gone by!

Doll Hair Tutorial With Yarn

 

Of course a Doll can't grow hair, but have you ever wondered how a Rag Doll goes from this..........

to this,.......?

In this blog post I will share how I give my Rag Dolls a full head of hair. 

(IF you are interested in purchasing my Rag Dolls or my Rag Doll pattern visit QuietStandards on Etsy.)

Back to the tutorial.

The supplies are:

Thread 

Needle

Thimble

A whole bunch of yarn strings cut to 12-14 inches long

Use a pencil to draw a line down the middle of the back of the doll's head.

Carry this line over to the front of the doll's head.

Take a strand of yarn and fold it in half.

Stitch the center of the piece of yarn to the doll's head, using the pencil line as a stitching guide.

Loop your thread around the center of the yarn.

Use your needle to stitch down into the doll head at the back side of the yarn and bring your needle up a few millimeters out in front of the yarn, setting up for the next piece of yarn.

And then loop the next stitch back over another piece of yarn and so on and so forth....

Keep going.

When you have stitched the last piece of yarn onto the doll's head, tie off the thread in an inconspicuous area of the head where the knot will not be visible once the hair is braided.

Tie the hair into ponytails using a length of thread or yarn.

Tack the ponytails to the sides of the doll's head with a couple stitches that go around the thread or yarn tying the ponytails and back through the fabric of the head.

Carefully braid the ponytails and tie off with thread or yarn.

Use scissors to trim the long ends, leaving as much tassel as you like.

 

Even up all the ends, making all the strands the same length.

And that concludes this tutorial. If you have any questions, please send me a message or leave a comment!