I own a crochet shop.

I now add "Master Hooker" to my list of titles! Check out my mini shop on FB until I get my etsy shop up and running. 

www.facebook.com/Mamamegsmerch 

House hold DIY awesomeness!

I'm due today. So far no action... But I have been busy. I read something on FB that got me thinking, wouldn't it be nice if we had a tidy little list of homemade awesomeness in one convenient place!? Well, here's that place. What follows are a mix of my own tried and true cleaning concoctions and a few I've found online and through Pinterest.
Megan's Everything, Everywhere Spray:
Supplies:
Spray Bottle
White vinegar
Lemon "Essential Oil" (EO)
Tea Tree Oil (TTO)

- Mix a 50/50 of water and vinegar and add ~20 drops of each EO. Shake well before use.
Can be used on counter tops, windows, bathroom sink, literally EVERYWHERE. The ingredients are both antibacterial and antimicrobial!

Megan's Upholstery Cleaner:
Supplies:
Spray Bottle
White Vinegar
Lavender EO
TTO

-Mix water and vinegar (70/30) and add ~20 drops lavender and ~10 drops TTO. Shake well before use. Use on all soft fabric surfaces, couches, pillows, mattresses. The lavender also works really well if you have fleas, it will kill and repel adults, but will NOT get rid of the eggs. TTO is great for any built up "bacterial" smells.

Megan's Tub & Toilet No-Scrub Spray:
Supplies:
Spray bottle
Blue dawn
White vinegar
Water
Lemon EO

-Mix together in spray bottle using 50/50 ratio vinegar/water, about 1 tsp blue dawn (you must use the blue dawn, I'm not sure why, but it's God's gift to cleaning and does the best job on everything!) and 20 drops lemon EO. Shake gently before use. To use: Wet down shower, spray onto walls and tub, let sit ~15 mins rinse. It will cut through reasonable scum without scrubbing if you do it 2-3x a week, if you've gone awhile (like I do) without really getting in there use a rag and scrub a bit, rinse.


Megan's Bugg-off Rubb-on or Spray:
Supplies:
Coconut Oil
Lemongrass EO
TTO (optional)
Lavender EO
Citronella EO
Small Spray bottle
Pot of hot water (Boiled but not still on stove must be over 85 degrees)

-Melt your coconut oil completely in the pot of hot water (can take about 20-30 mins depending on how hot you got the water, be sure that your container holding the coconut oil won't melt at a lower temp) and add ~15 drops each of your oils. You can now decide if you want a rub on or a spray. If you choose a rub on your done allow mixture to harden! If you'd like to make a spray, mix in ~10 extra drops of EO's into your coconut oil mixture, then mix 50/50 ratio of water and put into your spray bottles.

Megan's Facial Scrub
Supplies:
~4-6oz breast milk (optional) can use water instead
3-4 Tbs salt or sugar  (I like regular table salt, sea salt is a little too rough on my face
1 Tbs raw local honey
2 Tbs melted/softened coconut oil
Half a lemon
Boiling pot of water/really hot running water
Towel
Bowl and a mixing utensil

-Mix ingredients in a bowl. I like to steam my face right before doing this scrub to really open my pores, I do this over a pot of boiling water because my tap water takes 36 hours to get hot. After mushing and mashing up all your ingredients scrub away using small circular motions. I try to let it sit for a good couple minutes or until I'm just too bored. Rinse well with warm water, take the lemon half and being VERY VERY careful not to get it in your eyes rub the lemon on your face. DO NOT get this in your eyes it burns like a mofo! Leave the lemon on your face for a few and then rinse with warm water. Pat dry and look gorgeous!

Megan's Spider-b-gone:
Supplies:
Spray bottle (depending on how much you LOATHE spiders a bug one or a small one I've got 3 small ones strategically placed around the house)
Peppermint EO
TTO
Water

-Mix in ~25-30 drops of oils in spray bottle and mix with water. Shake well before use. Spray in corners where dust spiders make cobwebs, behind the toilet, under the sink, around doors and windows, coat your whole damn house because spiders HATE peppermint!
Now some say, hey if you get rid of the spiders you could have other bugs in your house that those spiders would have eaten, guess what I DON'T CARE! As long as it's not a spider I can deal.

Megan's Fruit Fly Fix: This is a pretty common one and I really can't take credit for coming up with it, my grams taught me this years ago.
Supplies:
Small dish/saucer
Apple cider vinegar
2 DROPs BLUE dawn dish soap
A pinch of Sugar

-Mix together the ingredients, and leave next to where your fruit fly problem is most prominent. Leave overnight, and change in the morning, for best results try to have the dish under a single source of light and have the rest of the room dim/black.

Many uses of Alka-Seltzer:
-Drop it in the toilet, wait for fizz to stop, scrub, admire your clean potty
-Nasty stuck on lasagna pan? Hot water, plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh no scrubbing today it is!




The Duggar Recipe for great laundry detergent:
(Original blog post : http://duggarsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/duggar-recipe-liquid-laundry-soap.html)
Supplies:
4  Cups hot water
1  Fels-Naptha soap bar (Search the Fels-Naptha website to find a store near you that carries this)
1 Cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (most superstore will have this available)
½ Cup Borax
-Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of EO per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. I Like Lavender and tea tree as they pack a little extra antibacterial punch!
-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

Baby prepping and a needless ramble

In preparation for DS2 (Darling Son), we have begun a whole house overhaul. Lots of our projects are halfway done, but at least they've been started right? WRONG! Because now I look around and I'm even more of a nervous wreck about  bringing my baby home! Add to this stress, our toddler can now escape the confines of the fully baby-proofed gated jail we created for him when he discovered his love to take things apart. Well, now no where is safe and drawers, cabinets, toilets and all need to be child proofed, which will be difficult because who the hell can figure out those damn latches whilst trying not pee your pants?! Any who... Baby should be here in just a couple short weeks and I am less than prepared, mentally, emotionally and fuck the physical aspect of labor is daunting enough without thinking about chasing DS1 around afterwards! I do the natural labor thing. I see no need for medical intervention within something women have been doing for Milena.
 I labored with DS1 for a total of 17 hours, including only 15 minutes of push time. Approx. 5-6 of those hours were spent at home in my comfy as fuck bed and bouncing on a birthing ball watching Family Guy while DH (Darling Husband) cleaned like a nesting maniac high on bleach fumes. In the end it was so incredibly worth the "pain" - I put this word into quotes to bring to light a little fact, while labor is hard, and can be long and tiresome, there is no need for it to be the gut wrenching, rip-your-throat-out-if-you-touch-me painful sequence of events TV and media make it out to be. Educate yourself on the ins and outs of labor. Know what is normal and what is not before going into that hospital room where the doctors and nurses may instill so much fear in you that you end up drugged up and unable to push and are rushed to the OR for an unnecessary C-sec!!
I get a little touchy on the subject of natural birth, mostly due to the fact that I see so many women being told you cant, or you wont want to, or oh, you'll beg for the drugs, and they're defeated before they even get a chance to try... But any way that's a whole other post, soon to come. Back on target.
My hospital bag, which unfortunately I HAVE to pack as I am ineligible for a home birth (damn blood disorder >.<) consists of the following:
-Jammies (Low cut and boobies accessible) x 3
-Undies (Stained period granny panties I really don't give two shits about) x 4
-Soft cotton robe (black less stainage)
-Cotton Tunic dresses x2
-Giant fluffy bath towel (The hospital ones barely cover my tits let alone the rest of my body) x2
-Slippers (A must so peoples don't have to assist with socks while I'm constantly in and out of the shower)
-Breastfeeding tools (Nursing pillow, nursing bras/sports bras x4, nipple cream)
-Toiletries (Shampoo, conditioner (EXTRA) Vaseline, blistex, Toothbrush, hairbrush, extra hair ties, massage oils, lavender oil)

Baby's needs:
-Burt's Bees Baby Care (Wash, lotion - all hospitals use J&J and I REFUSE to wash my children with a product known to have carcinogens, while the company states it will take 3 years to "phase out" said chemicals - read more here http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57493890-10391704/johnson-johnson-to-phase-out-potentially-harmful-chemicals-by-2015/: )
-Onsies that button up x 6 (in case of blow outs, 4 short sleeved, 2 long)
-Baby socks (I still don't have these >.<)
-Light go home blanket
-Adorable Ralph Lauren Polo Jumper and matching hat to go home in :)

Anything I'm missing? Our hospital provides LOTS of the bare necessities, like diapers receiving blankets and what not.

A little about who I am...

A little about who I am. Well, that's a bit of a loaded statement. Does anyone actually start these things out with just a little synopsis? How do I wrap up my first 25 years of life into a little readable non-rambling package for your consumption? Here is my attempt, it may bore you, you may relate, but either way this is who I am.
I was raised in your normal middle class family in New England. My mother busted her ass every single day to ensure that my brother and I were provided for, as my Stepfather was really good for nothing but laundry. He was an ornery alcoholic and never treated my mother with the respect that I always knew she deserved. Looking back on my childhood as an adult I was probably exposed to a lot more violence, alcohol and drug abuse than should have been, but in all things there is a lesson. I vowed as a young adult that I would never be brought down by a man, and no matter what I would never go down the paths of addiction...
I started dabbling in drinking and drugs at a very young age. Never allowing it to get too out of hand (yeah, like any preteen can actually say this) but from my memories I wasn't that wild of a kid. I went through a stage where I stole my mothers Toyota Tercel and took joy rides with friends not thinking of any kind of repercussion, being caught didn't mean very much to me at the time, and neither did possibly killing a car full of kids. I'd wait 2-3 weeks and be back on the road cruising around town in circles listening to music and getting felt up in the back seat by the boy I liked that week. That all came to and end when I met the man (boy) of my dreams, and here's where the story gets good.
I had been dabbling in X and would on occasion arrive to school rolling my face off, it was fun exciting and a little nerve wracking thinking that I could be caught at any moment. Then I saw him. WOW, this guy was hot! *SWOON* He had the most beautiful kissable lips I'd ever seen. One problem, my very good friend had dibs, damn... But after a few weeks and an introduction she'd tired of him trying to get into her pants and gave me the green light. I will be forever thankful to her for this.
Rolling at school makes you want to brush up against every single person roaming the halls, it makes you want to put your face against the cold concrete bricks and stand there forever, it also makes you seek out the object of your affection shove him up against said wall and pour your tongue down his throat. And that is where our little love affair began. One night, one blow job and he was mine.
He entered the Marine Corps. at 18, a short 9 months after we began dating. I knew I'd wait for him, I knew that one day I'd marry him, I knew all these things that every 16 year old high school girl just KNOWS about her first love. We fell even deeper in love the way they did during the era of WWII & Viet Nam, hand written letters, notes with flowers sent every single month on our "anniversary" from thousands of miles away. I would rush home from school and rip open my mail box begging for a letter saying, "He's still alive, he's coming home soon, he still loves me." By the end of his second tour I knew that the boy I had fallen for was now a man, and that man was, in so many words damaged. The events and engagements he'd been a part of in Iraq would change his life and mine forever. But, I stuck around because I knew he was worth it, and I knew he needed me. We were married 3 months before his voluntary third tour to Afghanistan, I was 18 and fresh out of high school, he was 21.
TBI is a bitch. PTSD is an even bigger one. Dealing with both in your significant other at the young age of 19 just sucks completely. I had no idea how to help him, nightmares, night sweats, flash backs, headaches that'd go on for days and way too much drinking to try and keep the thoughts of his lost friends at bay began to take a toll on the both of us. It took just around 4 years to pull my loving husband out from the pit of grief he had been in since returning from his services over seas, in the span of those years he lost his father to cancer, nearly lost his mother to the same and very nearly lost me due to a COMPLETE loss of judgment and eventual infidelity. I call those years the ones that almost broke me.
We have now been together nearly 10 years, married for 6, and have brought 1 and a half (Due mid august) beautiful boys into this world. Life is still not easy. But who the hell needs easy? Id take my new life as a stay at home mom, with a disabled Veteran husband and a crazy toddler and newborn over an easy life any day, because it's mine.

.