One year ago yesterday, I married the love of my life. He is a wonderful man, and this post is dedicated to him. (I'll put some pictures here if I can ever get things together with these computers!)

Arthur

He is kind and considerate. I am always amazed when he can pick up on exactly what people are feeling and do something about it. When he does it with me, I am always pleased, but when he notices that someone clear across the room appears to be having a hard day and crosses through the crowd to check on them, it amazes me and delights me that this wonderful attentive person is my husband. He has a gift for reading people's emotions and knowing the right words to say.

He is courageous. He has courage that I could not dream of having, though I do try to dream. He has the courage to say things I may fear to say or do things I may fear to do. I'm never scared when he's with me, because I know he would die before he'd let anything happen to me. He's always looking out for me in a thousand little ways. As I said, his courage is not only one that faces physical dangers but other threats as well. I know he's courageous enough to be honest when it truly counts. I've seen him talk to a troubled friend and ask them if they were right with God. He told them that if they'd get that part of their life straightened out, the rest would not matter as much. He told them that he had been through some very hard times too and that there is hope for a better future. When you know things are right with you and God, the pains of the past no longer have to control you. I don't know that I would ever have had the courage to ask that person that question, but it was done in such a spirit that no feelings were hurt and no one was offended. I could tell that the person felt loved and cared about. On the other end of the spectrum, he has had to defend himself to men at work when they question his commitment not to work on Sundays. For some reason, some people take his commitment not to work Sundays as a personal attack on their morals, even though he's never implied what he thought they should do either way. He simply turns down the work, and their imaginations do the rest. He never attacks them in any way, but neither does he back down off of his position. He can stand firm.

He looks after me. When we are anywhere there may be a potential threat, he always places himself between me and it. I remember walking down to the river in Cincinnati to watch the fireworks on Labor Day. On the way down, there weren't many people, but on the way back, there were hundreds and hundreds of people all walking away from the river. Sadly, many people were drunk or high. Every time we neared a person or group of people that seemed like they could potentially be a problem, he quickly and inconspicuously placed himself between me and them. He's very observant and picks up on lots of things I don't notice in my happy-go-lucky little world. I am very rarely on high alert, so a lot of things slip past me. He catches me when I stumble from not paying attention, and he often warns me of any potential problem before it arises, knowing that I'm probably not paying attention: "There's a bump there. There's a low fence here. Don't step on that." :-) If I'm not feeling well, he does everything he can to help me feel better. I usually like to get up when he gets up and fix his lunch. One night, I was up late in the night with a headache that just would not go away. The next morning, I was awakened to a soft kiss and a goodbye. He had quietly gotten out of bed, got ready to go, fixed his own lunch, and come to tell me goodbye so I would not have to get out of bed and could get some extra rest. He probably wouldn't have awakened me at all, but he knows that I cannot stand not to say goodbye, so he made it as easy on me as possible. On one particularly tiring day when I felt I'd gotten nothing done, I noticed that he'd been in the other room for quite awhile. I went and checked to find him washing the dishes. He had done it without saying a word, knowing that if I knew he was in there doing it, I'd probably get up and try to help. He's so sweet.

He is very competent. When he does something, there is no need to check and see if it is done well. I know it will be. He is talented in a number of areas. He's a good athlete. He's an avid outdoorsman. He's a good hunter who knows lots of little details that others may fail to notice. He's a good shot with a variety of weapons. He knows how to do all kinds of things that lots of people don't do. He can identify a bird when it's too far away for me to even tell if it's a goose or a robin. He can tell what it is by the way it moves its wings or holds its head. If he doesn't know how to do something, he can figure it out. He's my memory. If I can't remember a name or a detail, I will ask him. He always remembers. When he sets his mind to accomplishing something, he can make it happen.

He's a hard worker. Arthur is one of the hardest workers I know. When he decides to do a job, you can be sure it will be done, be done well, and be done quickly. He always does his best work. If you ask him to do a job, you can be sure it will be done the best he is capable of doing it at the time. However, he is good at knowing how to balance work and home. He knows that I need him here too, and he has often turned down work or extra activities because they would take too much time away from our relationship. He is committed to working, but he's also committed to finding that delicate balance that will help us to grow best together. That being said, if there is a job that needs done and no one else wants to do it, he will almost always be there to help. That was one of the things one of my cousins told me about him when I was first considering dating him, and I have found that to be true. She said that at Kid's Club at church, if there's a job no one else is willing to do, she knows she can ask Arthur and, even if it's not something he enjoys or he doesn't feel "qualified," he will be willing. I have seldom ever heard him turn anyone down when they asked for help, and when he does, it is almost always because he's already committed to doing some other job or favor that day or because he feels he hasn't spent enough time with me that week.

Arthur is great with kids. He knows how to balance authority and affection in a way that kids respond to. He recognizes that they are people with feelings, emotions, wants, and needs and that theirs are just as valid as those of an adult. He treats them with dignity and respect as fellow human beings, and as a result, they respect him. He listens to their little stories and their feelings and treats them with the same courtesy he'd treat an adult. He's able to balance that with the authority required to make them obey and teach them to make good decisions. He knows that a child can be crushed early in life, and it will affect them forever, so he handles them carefully and lovingly. He never demeans them or embarrasses them or does anything that would damage their spirits. He's fun loving and enjoys playing with them too. Children love Arthur.

Arthur is a good listener. If you need to spill out your woes, he's good to lend and ear and a shoulder to cry on. He's pretty good at giving out sound advice when it's needed, and he's pretty good at knowing when it's needed. He knows that there are times when all you really need is to hear, "I'm sorry. I know that is rough." He's faithful to pray for the people that come to him with problems and for those that he recognizes have problems they cannot share.

He's fun-loving. We have so much fun together. Even menial little tasks can be fun when you work together. I remember counting the change from the change jar and having quite a time. We made it a challenge to see who could count the most coins in the shortest amount of time. Then we made it a challenge to see who could get the last coin back in the jar. Of course Arthur hid a coin, I knew that he would. I acted hesitant to put my coin in the jar. He, of course, acted noble and put his coin into the jar. I acted triumphant as I dropped the "last" coin in the jar. After that, he pulled a coin out from under something and dropped it with gusto into the jar. I acted disappointed just long enough for him to get a gloating look on his face, then I pulled my coin out from under my leg and dropped it in the jar! The shocked look on his face was priceless. He always wins such contests and was surprised that I had fooled him. We both dissolved into laughter on the floor and laughed until our eyes were watering. We have had water fights with the sprayer in the kitchen. We have had a paper wad war break out in the living room and spread across the whole house. Arthur takes a special pleasure in trying to scare me. He will sneak up on me when I'm sitting in the recliner and pull it over backwards. He will stand outside the bathroom in the dark and grab me when I walk out. He loves to challenge me to a game of air hockey, miniature golf, or even video games, though I generally know that I will lose those. I am pretty competitive, though, so I try to give him a run for his money. We really have a good time together.

He's a good Christian man. Arthur does his best to do what's right in every situation. He loves God and wants to please Him. He leads us in devotions every night and tries to be a witness for God everyday in his words and actions. He enjoys helping with Kid's Club, because he wants to make a difference in those children's lives early so they can come to God at a young age. Driving the bus is not one of his favorite activities, but when he is needed, he gives up that early Sunday sleep and drives the bus to pick up the Sunday School kids. He puts God first, even when situations make it difficult. He loves other people, even when at times they can seem unlovable. He often sacrifices his own desires to help someone else. I really admire that about him.

I married the most wonderful man. We have had a very happy first year together. People talk about how hard your first year can be, but I have not found it to be especially hard. In spite of the unusual number of difficulties we've had to face already (Arthur's father died suddenly a few months before we were married, his job was not waiting for him when we got back from our honeymoon, he went about three months without work because there was just no work to be had, we had an accident in the truck, my grandpa got sick and passed away...), we've grown closer and more in love. We've learned to trust each other and rely on each other. We've learned to pinch pennies when we have to and give when it's not easy. We learned to trust God to make up the difference between what we can do and what we need. Sure, there were occasional spats, but the best of friends are sure to have those at times. Our spats have been surprisingly few. The important thing is, we always reconciled and apologized for any bad attitudes, and we are learning to work with each other and grow with each other. Arthur is not difficult to live with because he is loving and has the same desire I do to make our marriage all that God intended marriage to be. He is my best friend, and it is a joy to spend my life with him.

I love you, Arthur!

Your adoring wife,

Jessica

My education

I may be out of school forever (yey!), but I find that I am continuing my education just the same. Although, the fields that I am being educated in are a bit different from what I studied before. Right now I am taking Gardening and weed-killing 101, Ant and Spider-killing, and Advanced Laundering. Of course, most of these are independent study, but all have labs. Have you ever taken an independent study course with a lab? It can be a bit sketchy. Arthur's a great teacher as far as the gardening goes, and Grandma Baber is full of good tips. I'm still trying to help myself some with this one though. Through my collateral reading (a.k.a. the internet), I have discovered that you can use a paint brush to apply Brush-b-Gone directly to poison ivy leaves and kill the whole plant without affecting the surrounding plants (like raspberries). Then, you have to use gloves and pull the dead plant up and dispose of it in a plastic bag. If you don't kill the plant before pulling it up, more plants can develop from the broken roots. If any more come up, you have to wait for them to get leafy again and reapply the weed killer. I'm going to try this. Hopefully, I can keep from getting it again while pulling the dead plants up as I'm still not over the last exposure. The poison can remain active even on dead leaves for over a year. Ick!

Next course of study: Killing Bugs. The garden has quite an ant infestation. I have never seen such big ant hills in all my life as the ones that are near the edge of the garden. From what I have read, ants actually farm aphids, which can be damaging to vegetables. The ants keep the aphids in their nests all winter then take them out and lead them to the plants the aphids feed off of. The ants also protect the aphids from other predators. The aphids produce a sweet substance that the ants feed off of. In theory, if you can get rid of the ants, you can get rid of the aphids, and your garden will be a safer place for plants and vegetables. What I have discovered through my study is that you can kill ants with cornmeal if it stays dry. You sprinkle the dry cornmeal, the ants eat it, then when they drink, the cornmeal expands and kills them. Sounds cruel, but so is killing all of my vegetables. The other way I found to kill them is to mix borax and sugar with a little bit of water. You put it near the nest, the ants take it home and feed on it, and it kills the whole colony. I have decided to use a one two punch. The borax isn't recommended for use directly in the garden as it can damage the plants. The cornmeal won't work if it gets wet before the ants eat it. What I'm going to do is take old canning lids and put a dab of the borax mixture on top to help prevent it from just seeping into the soil. I'm going to set those around the nests at the edge of the garden. I'm going to sprinkle the cornmeal around the nests and in the garden. I'll have to reapply some after it rains, which is pretty often right now, but I have a large bag of cornmeal. I'll let you know about the results of my experiments. I may put cornmeal only on one nest and see if it seems to do any good (so long as they don't wander down to the sugar mixture at the other end of the garden). If it kills them good enough, it might be a good option for in and around houses where there are pets and children. From what I've read, the amount of borax I will be using shouldn't be too harmful to children and pets, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. As for the spider part of the equation, I have found a rather vicious looking spider in my house and trapped it under a jar. I do not want vicious spiders in my house, so I'm trying to see if I can find good ways to kill them too. The borax is said to be helpful. I also read that spraying a mixture of vinegar and a little coconut oil is suppose to make your home inhospitable to them, especially for their web-spinning. I may have to try this. I trapped the spider yesterday, and it's still alive today, so I slipped a little of my ant-killing mixture under the jar to see what happens. From what I've read, the active ingredient in Terro ant killer is borax, which you can get in the laundry aisle of your grocery store. It's also a great household cleaner, which brings me to my next subject:

Advanced Laundering: Hopefully this will be advanced. As I mentioned earlier, I recently got a new high-efficiency washer. My mom has one, and she just uses much less of the regular detergent. I was a bit hesitant to do this, but I thought I'd try it and see. I tried it for awhile, and it seemed to do okay. However, while folding a load the other day, I noticed that the laundry didn't smell especially fresh. I opened the detergent dispenser on my washer and found that it appeared to have the same amount of detergent in it that it had when I started it. It should be noted here that I was using a powder. After doing a bit of research, I found that you can use a small amount of regular detergent in a high efficiency machine for awhile with apparently no adverse effects, but over time, it may clog the machine because the machine is not build to use all of the suds that regular detergent produces. It can also build up a film and eventually damage parts. Some people continue to use regular detergent with no problems, but I decided that the expense of possibly having to repair my machine would probably outweigh the expense of the HE detergent. Something else to consider is that a sudsing detergent will not get clothes as clean as the HE detergent in an HE machine, because the collision with the water is the effective part of the cleaning process in an HE machine, and the suds tend to lessen that collision. I decided that I would go ahead and at least look at the HE detergent.

Arthur has somewhat sensitive skin and has had some problems with it at times flaring up and being very itchy. My mom had told me that her dad experienced similar problems once, and his doctor told him to switch to Cheer detergent. My grandma switched to Cheer and his skin cleared up. She recommended that I switch to Cheer at least for Arthur's socks. I went to the detergent aisle and looked at the HE detergent. The only one that had a powdered detergent was Tide. I did not want to switch to liquid, because I cannot use the delay timer on my washer if I use a liquid detergent. I decided that I would do some more research before deciding on a detergent. After a bit of searching, I discovered that I could make a homemade powdered laundry soap! Call me crazy, but I decided to give it a try. It is said to be perfectly safe to use in HE machines because it is non-sudsing. It is also said to be gentle on skin because it is a soap and not a detergent. Many people use it on cloth baby diapers, so I figured they must have found it to be both gentle and affective. It has three ingredients: Fels Naptha laundry bar, washing soda, and borax. The borax was easy to find in the laundry aisle at Wal-Mart. The other two ingredients weren't there though. I had read that some people used baking soda but that it wasn't as effective. I also read that some people used Ivory soap or another bar soap but that it was not as effective as the laundry bar. One person also reported that it left a little film on her dark clothes, but others that used it did not report the same problems. Either way, I didn't want to use it if I could find a better option. I searched several stores and finally found all the ingredients in one place at Kroger. If you'd like to try this but have problems finding the ingredients, the websites I read said that most stores would be happy to order them for you. The washing soda is made by Arm and Hammer, and the Fels Naptha is made by Dial Soap Co. Other laundry soap bars were mentioned, including Zote, Sunshine, and Castile, so I assume you could use any of those, but the most talked about one on the sites I read was Fels Naptha, so I got it. Apparently, it's been around for over 100 years and is probably what most of our grandparents used to do laundry. Anyways, the Fels was 1.29 for a bar, the soda was 3.09 for a 3-plus pound box, and the borax was 2.96 for a 4 pound box. Here's the recipe:
Grate 2/3 of a bar of Fels Naptha laundry soap (I used the grating blade on my food processer and the chopping blade so that it was really fine and done really fast). This should come out to about a cup of grated soap.
Mix with 1/2 cup of borax and 1/2 cup of washing soda. Mix well and put in an container with a lid.
Simple enough, isn't it? The sources I read recommend using 1 Tablespoon of soap for an average sized load in a high-efficiency washer. I used that and it worked great. However, in the next load I washed, I had two of Arthur's HEAVILY soiled work shirts. I found that they weren't as clean as I'd have liked, so I put the work shirts back in along with some other heavily soiled clothes and used a heaping tablespoon instead of a level tablespoon, and they came out great! The smelled and looked clean and were pretty soft too. I haven't washed many loads yet, but so far, so good. I'll let you know how it goes after the next load of work clothes. I must say that the soap is indeed non-sudsing, or at least VERY low sudsing. I never saw any suds while the laundry was washing, but there was a little bit in the seal at the bottom of the door when I opened it. From what I've read, though, it can take several wash loads to clean all of the suds out of your clothes and machine if you've been washing with regular detergent for awhile. They say that the detergent actually deposits on your clothing and can take quite awhile to wash out, so I'll see if the suds lessen with a few more washes. Either way, there are hardly any suds, whereas there were loads of suds with the regular detergent, even though I was using a tiny amount.
Assuming you use 1 level tablespoon of detergent in each load, two bars of Fels Naptha mixed with the other ingredients should wash 96 loads of laundry! I'm not sure how many cups of borax and washing soda are in a box, but it looks like quite a few to me! I dumped out the borax I had left into a batter bowl with measuring marks on the side and there are about 9 cups left in there. I used a cup in the soap, because I made a double batch. I also used about a cup in cleaning my drains and making ant killer, so I figure there's roughly 11 cups in there. That's 13.45 cents for one batch of soap. There were about 5 cups left in the washing soda box. I used 1 cup in the soap and probably closer to 2 cups to clean with. It makes a great pre-soak for stains, and I've never seen anything get stains of of walls or linoleum so easily! Anyways, it comes out to 22.07 cents worth of washing soda for a batch. 2/3 a bar of Fels soap costs 86 cents. That means that one batch of soap costs $1.2152. We'll round it to $1.22. That comes out to 3.39 cents a load. I suspect however, that it is actually a little less than that because I am guessing about how much I used in general cleaning. Of course, you're going to use more for a very large or very heavily soiled load, just like with any detergent. This site: http://www.consumersearch.com/www/house_and_home/laundry-detergent/comparison.html says that Cheer HE costs approximately 23 cents a load. If we round to the nearest cent, I am saving about 20 cents a load with my homemade stuff! I was 5 or 6 loads a week. That's between 260 and 312 loads a year. That's a savings of between $52 and $62.40 a year! That's not bad for something that can be made by pushing a button then shaking a plastic container. I could make this stuff in about 1 minute per batch. I need 9.75 batches for 312 loads, so lets make that 10 batches for 320 loads. For ten minutes worth of work, I can save $64. That's $384 an hour. Maybe I should start selling this stuff. ;-) You may say that I spend the extra time at Kroger, since I seldom stop there, but I DO stop there now and then, and if I buy 7 bars of soap and 1 box of washing soda, that'll do about a year's supply of soap! That's about 12 dollars worth of supplies. See what a little education is worth? If you use this instead of Tide, you're saving a whopping 32 cents a load, and that's not even for HE. Of course, if you use the Wal-Mart brand, you're saving about 9 cents a load, but I'm not sure they make HE. Either way, not bad.