Charlotte's Writing Nook

   You'd be surprised if you knew how many times a day you say or type the word 'love.' Today I'm focusing on the topic of love, and how we use it - the word love is so underestimated.    Does this sound familiar? '' I LOVE that dress!'' '' I just LOVED that handbag you had last night! Where did you get it?'' or ''I LOVE that phone case!''  Pause a moment and think about how much our language has changed... just an example is how you reply: yes ma'm - okay - ok - k. Watch what you say because you may find yourself saying you love something even sarcastically. The word love was intended for the use of a complex relationship between a sibling or parent, man and woman. Now we use it for unimportant things. The word love might just mean a little more all over the world if we stop using it as a throwaway word. When you talk about your love for someone or how Jesus loves you, it would probably go a lot deeper if you would s...

To brighten up your day here are some of my favorite quotes from our My Quotable Kid book. Share these with your friends and family to turn a frown upside down!  Who: Charlotte (me) Age: 8 Where: at home   Mom: ''I wonder who left these kleenex laying around?''  (shot look at Charlotte)   Charlotte: ''Don't point your eyebrows at M E.'' Who: C live an d Charlotte Age: 5 + 8 Where: home - dinner table   Charlotte: ''I want to go to the promised land someday.''   Clive: ''I don't ! I want to go to Legoland!'' Who : Crosby Age : 3 Where: in bed   Crosby: (after reading Batman book) ''Batman man keeps us safe from bad guys ...and monsters...''   Mom: ''Who els e protects you?''   Crosby: ' 'Mommy!''   Mom: ''Who else?''     Crosby: '' Daddy!''   Mom: '' Who's bi gger than Momm...

Most people try to wash sap off with soap and water , but it takes something more. My tried and true method of getting sap off your hands has worked not only for me, but others as well. You don't need to feel bad about your body, because my method is an all-natural one. First apply onion soap to your hands. Our onion soap came as a bar. It can be used to get that ever-lasting smell of onions off your hands before company comes over. It's very important here. Assuming you already have onion soap, or you bought some, you apply it to your hands.  Then wash the onion soap off thoroughly. The onion soap we have is also a bit rough, which can also help to get the sap off.  Next, use the brush you scrub the dishes with. Scrub the spot(s) on your hands where you got the sap on them.  Dry your hands on a kitchen towel good. After that, rub them on the edge of your wooden table or furnished outdoor furniture to get any access sap off.          ...

Where you have the camels, who do best in a hot climate, and the penguins who do best in a cold climate, the fish that thrive in a extremely wet climate, and the furry felines that prefer the warm sunshine, the worms fall into not one of those categorys. The worms like to burrow into the ground, much like a rabbit, except they like to stay under. There they find all the nutrients they need. They need the soil to damp, because 1. imagine how hard it would be to move around in dry, crumbly soil. 2. their body needs to be able to get water from soil, just like we need to get water from our sink. Of course, a worm can't have too much water, otherwise it will die. Though humans need water, we would drown if someone dunked up under water and didn't let us come up for air. It's the same with worms. Worms might seem easy to care for, but they need both stable, dry, ground and soft wet soil. There is more than 6,000 different types of worms, so you can't expect to have the sam...

Us Central-Illinoisans are clinging on to the old saying '' April showers brings May flowers.'' The rain never seems to stop around here. If it holds off for the morning it starts raining again around lunch time.  We are thankful though, because that means our plants will thrive this year. We've been getting plenty of sun, but what the garden really needs is rain!  Though rain might seem depressing to others for us it means: sleeping in later. There's no sun to shine in your window and wake you up. More board games and family movie nights. Of course there's the classic jumping in puddles and going on walk with your family in the rain. I'm not only sharing what we do on a rainy day, but what you can do. Don't let the rain wake you up on wrong side of the bed. Instead simply accept that it's raining. Rain can be good for all of us. Your family isn't in separate place but your family is doing things together. While it thunders outside an...

We have finished our downstairs bathroom, kitchen, and dining room. My awesome father a long time tearing up the tile, cutting and sanding wood floorboards, and both my mom and dad painted -(the wood and walls). We put the finish on and, after hard work, admired what we'd done. We had to wait to move furniture onto the floors, and my parents insisted we take our shoes off before entering the house and stepping on the new floors. We got in the habit of it and so now we take our muddy boots off before coming inside. Seems like a pretty good habit to me.   That was a bunch of hard work and backache crammed into step 1.  Now this was step 2: Putting all the furniture back and planning how we were going to redo our bathroom. We painted in there too, and had to tear the cabinet out, purchase a new sink - all of that stuff. We bought one mirror for our bathroom only to find it was too big. A friend of ours made us new mirror which we love. Once the toilet...