Sugar substitutes?

I need help and thought I would come to the field of experts. You all seem to know so much more than I and are health-conscious. I am looking for alternatives to using processed white sugar in everyday cooking and baking. I am also doing research about growing Stevia. Can anyone help me?

AAAA! I don’t have toilet bowl cleaner!

This happened this morning. I realized that hubby was coming home and the bathroom stunk, due to a dirty bowl! I thought, surely that there is something else I can use, besides bleach… So I went under my kitchen sink, which houses all the cleaners in the house, and picked up the PineSol. Flipped it over and, walla!, you can use it to clean your toilets, among many other things, not just floors. Now I have a spic-and-span white bowl in the bathroom.
I have found other things that work in place of window cleaner, and not just to make your own. Now this is tried and true, for I have tried it and found that it is true. A damp washcloth and a terry towel is all you need to make every window and mirror in the house look like they’re not there. Just rub the damp washcloth over the dirty mirror/window, then rub dry with the towel. Amazing, but it works and it’s dirt-cheap. (No pun intended. But the water will work there as well.)
As far as laundry stains, I love to use Shout, but I have found that other things work just as well, if not better and are cheaper than Shout. Greased Lightening, PineSol, Murphy’s Oil Soap (even the stuff that’s for wood floors) to name a few. Look on the back of your cleaners and I bet you will find a whole new menagerie (sp?) of stuff it will clean!
Just thought I would pass this bit of info on to you all. It might come in handy to know, especially when the pretty “throne” isn’t too pretty or that the glass and mirrors in your house remind you of the verse that speaks of “looking through a glass darkly”!
~Ann

Doin’ the Wash

“Recipe for washing clothes

1. Build fire in back yard to heat kettle.

2 Set tubs so smoke won’t blow in eyes if wind is pert

3. Shove one who cake of lye soap in boiling water.

4. Sort thing. Make 1 pile colored, 1 pile white, 1 pile breeches and rags.

5. Stir flour in cold water to smooth. Thin down with boiling water. Starch.

6. Rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard then boil. Rub colored but don’t boil. Just rinse and starch.

7. Take white things out of kettle with broom handle. Then rinse, blue and starch.

8. Spread tea towels on grass; others on fence.

9. Put rinse water on flower beds.

10. Scrub porch with soapy water.

11. Turn over the tubs to drain.

12. Go put on a clean dress. Smooth hair with side combs. Brew tea. Sit and rest. Rock a spell. Count your blessings.”

-anonymous note (c. 1900) on display at the Whistler Museum and Archives, in Whistler, British Columbia

I found this in a magazine I was looking through the other day. Thought I would share this with you all. The article goes on to say, that Mondays was wash day. Sunday, you wore your best (and the only thing clean!) and had a big dinner. That night all clothes were put into the kettle to soak. Since this was an all-day event, cooking was out of the question, so I’m guessing they ate leftovers or whatever they could find from the day before. The day of rest was also a day to build up your strength and stamina for the next day of washing. “It took considerable strength to scrub clothes up and down a washboard and then run them through the treacherous wringer. As soon as the family had any discretionary income, the lady of the house used the surplus to hire a laundress.” Amazing, read #12. The last she does after such a day of hard work (esp. if she had little ones around) is to count her blessing. I know that I am counting mine. I don’t mind now the 3 or 4 loads of laundry I do each day. And very thankful to the Lord for allowing mankind to come up with something like the washer (and dryer, though I love hanging my clothes out on the line)! Though the rest of you might enjoy this…

Organization?

I am trying to get organized before we start school. In the midst of going through papers, books, folders (stacks of these), my dear hubby wants to organize/clean out the garage. Lots of stuff/too little space. Most of what is in the garage is stuff we either do use, but has no “home”, or stuff we don’t use but haven’t gotten rid of. Then there’s stuff I have come across and am not sure what it is. Probably something for hubby, so it gets put back. The garage is too daunting to even start. The school stuff, though, is coming along nicely, though I’m still going through stuff. Mom made the comment that I have so many books, will I ever use them all??? Who knows… But everywhere I look there are stacks of things. Stacks and stacks and stacks. AAAAA!