What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up?

I have recently reached a point in my life where I often ask myself, "What the hell am I doing with my life?" I'm not throwing a pity party or having an issue with self doubt. It's more of an empowering feeling. I take a step back and look at my life and see what I have accomplished and I don't see much. Yeah yeah yeah.... I know those of you that are reading this are going to scold me for questioning that and reassure me that I have a beautiful family, a great marriage and a wonderful little boy and those are great feats in itself. Yes, I do realize that and very fortunate, and for that is the very reason why I want to be better. I want to be someone. I want to allow my family's quality of life to improve in all areas not just financially.

I'm 26 and didn't take advantage of my opportunity to stay in college and get a degree when I was a "traditional college student." I traveled to the big metropolis of Abilene, Texas right out of high school to play basketball. During summer workouts in between my junior and senior year of high school, I developed 2 bulging discs in my back and just couldn't get through playing basketball without being in pain. I realized that if I wasn't getting a full ride to play, then it wasn't worth it to me to put my body through torture and spend an extreme amount of money to go to a private university. So I came back home and started working full time and went to Weatherford College and took a couple classes. I lost interest pretty fast in classes because I really didn't know what I was working towards so I took a short break. Haha! Well, that short break turned in to 8 years, a marriage and a child. Those life changes make it VERY hard to break out of your shell and go back to school or do something that you have always wanted or needed to do. Being secure in a job and having a monthly budget is such a warm and fuzzy thing to walk away from when you have family members that depend on you. To go from that to long nights of studying, working AND going to school sounds very stressful for me. But I have made a decision and I'm going to go for it.

I'm a huge believer in "everything happens for a reason". There is a purpose for everything we go through. I am not super religious but I do have my own relationship with God and I do believe he puts everything in my path to show me something. I had to go from working in doctor's offices making good money, to taking a chance and making awesome money at an oil field company and that company ceasing after a year, to taking any job that I could. I ended up at a vet clinic which I LOVED because I'm a huge animal lover and I got to take care of them, start IV's, draw blood and help out with surgery which piqued my interest in the more direct care for things. Working in the vet clinic was hard to walk away from but I eventually did because it just wasn't cutting the mustard and paying the bills. I ended back in a doctor's office and working for an Orthopedic Surgeron. I love everything about it and the people I work with. I have started helping out the nurse in the office when we get busy with cutting cast off, putting on splints, braces and drawing up injections.For the first time I feel like I know where I need to be in my professional career.

A patient came in the other day and she was in her 50's and she just got her RN degree and that inspired me. I can do this! I can work my butt off for a couple years to set my family up for our future. I can be a mother, a wife, an employee, a student and make it work. If I don't just go ahead and rip the band-aide off now, when will I? I will end up taking another "short break" and I will look up and we will be sending Blaze off to college and I will be standing in the same spot.

To put my plans in motion I have looked into financial aid, I have an appointment set up to chat with an advisor about my course of action, and I have all the support from friends and family. Hopefully I'm headed in the right direction to an RN degree.

What I'm getting down to in this post is that I want to hear your stories. If you were in my situation and you went for it, I want to hear about it. If you are thinking about it, I want to hear your story too! Feel free to comment on this post or send me an email to kacijohnson@live.com and make sure and let me know if it's ok to publish your story. I won't publish them all but any inspiration that I think will be beneficial for others to read, I just might post it on here. I can also leave you anonymous if you wish.

I hope to hear your stories!!

Until next time!!
-Kaci
"The Little Pioneer Girl"

Making Your Own: Dishwasher Detergent and Dryer Sheet

OK, if you haven't noticed from this post and the last, I'm kind of obsessed with making my own household products. Both of these ideas I found on other blogs and I would like to share. Until I started cruising around in Blog World, I had absolutely no idea all the things I have found were even available! Call me naive and maybe a little spoiled to think that laundry detergent, household cleaners other items had to be bought at the store for them to be effective. Boy was I wrong. I also wasted alot of money buying products that I could easily make myself and spend pennies instead of dollars. This is definitely a lifestyle change for me. I've realized not only is making my own products earth friendly because it cuts down on harsh chemicals and plastic waste but it actually works BETTER than store bought products! DOUBLE SWEET!

Here are 2 little recipes for you to enjoy!

Home Made Dishwasher Detergent
Shopping List:

• Borax (Found with the powder laundry detergents) 
• Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (Found in laundry detergent section) 
• Lemi Shine (Found in the dishwasher detergent section) 
• Kosher Salt (Found with the baking ingredients) 
• White Vinegar (Found on the condiment aisle) 
• Canister of your choice (Found in the Tupperware section)
• Tablespoon or Scoop

*Remember, you will make a couple batches out of items you bought. You will however have to use the whole can of Limi Shine each batch  you make.

Directions:

Step 1: Pour 2 cups of Borax into your canister.

Step 2: Pour 2 cups of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda into your canister.

Step 3: Pour 2 cups of Lemi Shine into your canister.

Step 4: Pour 1 cup of Kosher Salt into your canister.

Step 5: Mix together ingredients.

Usage: You only need to put 1 tablespoon into your wash cycle of the dishwasher. You can put one capful of the white vinegar into the pre wash for added cleaning power.

And done! How easy was that??

The next little tip is so easy it's ridiculous!

Homemade Dryer Sheets
Shopping List:

• Your favorite type and scent of liquid fabric softener
• An old hand towel or rag

Directions:

Step 1: Pour a couple of ounces of liquid fabric softener into a bowl.

Step 2: Soak your hand towel or rag into the bowl.

Step 3: Lightly wring out the hand towel or rag.

Step 4: Lay hand towel or rag onto a the counter or in a dry bowl and let dry.

Usage: Toss your hand towel or rag into your dryer with your clothes. Your rag can usually get up to 40 usages.


There you have it folks! What I love the most about these 2 things is that they are SUPER easy to make, I'm cutting down on enviromental waste, and the money I save is totally awesome! You can't get much better than that.

I guess y'all have noticed that the last couple of post have been DIY projects. I don't intend for this blog to be solely a DIY blog but these past couple things I just couldn't resist. Do y'all have any DIY tips that you use around the house or use often? Let me know and I will share my faves on the blog! Comments on this blog or welcome or you can email me at kacijohnson@live.com.

Until Next Time!
-Kaci
"The Little Pioneer Girl"

Make Your Own: Laundry Soap

I've recently gotten into this money saving kick. I like the fact that a little effort can save some serious cash over time. Whether it's cashing in my coupons, price matching, recycling, or even making something of my own that we use. If it saves money, I'm all about it. With gas prices being ridiculously high and other economic factors, it's forced a lot of us to re-evaluate our spending and adjust our budgets to the economy because the economy sure as heck doesn't adjust to us! I found this idea on Pinterest . And if you haven't discovered Pinterest.com yet, it's a must. I can't even describe how awesome this website is. I feel the need to share this idea because if it is as good as everyone says it is, then I have no idea why I haven't discovered this way before now. So today, I'm going to make my own laundry soap. This mixture of ingredients is supposed to last several months! And you only have to use 1 Tablespoon per wash load! If those last 2 sentences are not music to your ears then stop reading and wait until the next post because I just heard Slash rockin a bad A guitar riff in the background!

Ok, here are the ingredients you will need and how much I paid for them at Wal-Mart:

1- 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Pure Baking Soda                      $2.16
1- 3lb 7oz box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda           $3.24
1- 1.87lb tub of OxiClean (generic store brand will work fine)   $1.96
1- 4lb bag of any laundry soap (generic is the way to go)           $3.42
3- Fels-Naptha Bars                                                                 $0.97 each

That's $13.69 to make what I am hoping to be several months worth of laundry soap! SWEET!!!

You will also need a 5 gallon bucket. I reused an empty laundry soap bucket that I had gotten from Sam's. You will also need a cheese grater.

Step 1: Pour all of your powder ingredients into the bucket.

Step 2: Taking your cheese grater, you will grate the Fel-Naptha bars into the bucket. I just grated the bars right in the bucket so I didn't have to dirty another bowl.

Step 3: Mix up all your ingredients!

And, Viola!!!!!!

You only need to use 1 tablespoon per wash load because all the ingredients that you use make it SUPER potent! As an added bonus, while you are making your home-made laundry soap, your house smells AMAZING!

Hope you like this little tip! I know I will!

Until Next Time!
-Kaci
The Little Pioneer Girl