Homemade Laundry Soap

So I know I'm a little late posting this to my blog. I know that a zillion bloggers have done this before me, but I just want to post my version, based on all those other versions. 

Can I just reiterate again how incredibly cheap this is compared to buying store bought detergent? On some things, you will sacrifice something to save $30-$40 dollars. On this, you sacrifice nothing. This cleans clothes incredibly well, has a pleasant "clean" smell you can fancy up with essential oils if you want to, and literally costs pennies a load. And it's very, very simple to make. I will take you through it.

 This is all you need. A 2 1/2 gallon (10 quart) bucket, a bar of Fels Naptha, Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda,) borax, a grater, and a small saucepan. You're going to cook you up some soap.

 Grate 1/3 of the bar of Fels Naptha (You can find these ingredients pretty much anywhere, although Walmart sometimes has them out of stock.) into the saucepan. I just grate to the "e." And I make a mess, too. Deal with it.

Add some water. Set the control anywhere between 1-4. If I'm standing right there stirring it I'll set it at a 4 sometimes, but if you're doing other things set it on low and stir often. Takes about 10 minutes.

 This is what it will look like. It makes me insane that those little bits never seem to melt, but I've never managed to get them all to melt and still the soap does it's job.

 Fill up your bucket with HOT water. I don't know exactly why it's so important that it's hot, but I've never dared to try it with lukewarm or cold water. So make sure it's very, very HOT.

 1/2 cup of washing soda.

 1/2 cup of borax. If you want to go through and break apart all the little stuck-together parts be my guest. I'm on the same box of borax I bought a year and a half ago when I started making this, so it's had time to sit around and get stuck together. I accept this.

 Mix it all together with the melted soap and stir for a couple minutes.

Cover it with plastic wrap and set it back out of the way.

Look what time it is. Your soap will be ready in 24 hours. When it's ready, stir it up very well and grab a funnel along with a couple big, empty liquid laundry detergent containers (how's that for excessive use of adjectives?) I have to stand on a kitchen chair and pour the soap into the funnel very slowly because I am both short and mess-prone. You may use your own judgement.

If you're of a mind to do so, add 25-50 drops essential oil to your containers. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. Works just as well either way. Also - stick a couple marbles in your containers, and shake VERY WELL every time you use it, even if you already shook it for the previous 500 loads you did that day. It gels very quickly. I shake up and down a few times, then side to side.

And there you have it. 1/4 cup of detergent for HE washers, 1/2 for regular. Enjoy your extra $40. Go out to dinner or something. On me.

Flash Fiction - The Reckoning

It can't be two weeks since I blogged. How have the minutes added up and become 14 days?  Where does all my time go?


I have come by tonight to submit my Friday Flash Fiction. I'm only 50 minutes late.

The Reckoning (I know, cheesy name, right?)

The silence was measured only by the ticking of the clock in the hall. Darkness shrouded her as a thick, black fog. She looked down, seeing that she was barefoot, clad only in a long, white nightgown.

She crept up the stairs, flinching at each creak. Her mind buzzed numbly, wild with fear over what might be waiting for her at the top of the staircase, but unable to cease her steady movement upward. She could sense it there, crouching in the shadows, evil epitomized.

Her mind struggled to recall where she was. What she was doing in this house, and why she felt drawn to the room at the far right of the hallway. She realized with a white hot fear that she didn’t even know who she was.

The hallway was black. The only light shone from underneath the room she stepped toward, even as her consciousness begged her to run from this hallway, this house, this nightmare.

A great rush of chilled air blasted from under the door, and she shivered. She listened for any sound, but heard only the loud roar of complete silence. She realized that the only thing she could do was turn that antique knob, the old crystal kind, long covered over with debris and dust.

Her hand, trembling, reached out. Heat emanated from the knob, hotter as she grew closer, but still her hand reached. Searing pain met her fingers as she made contact, but she gripped it, turning it slowly until the latch released and the heavy oak door fell open with a long, loud groan.

White light blinded her. The moment dawned as she beheld her fate, that moment when everything in life comes into clarity. The moment for regrets, for pleas of second chances, or even for quiet peace to a few.

She felt only fear.

Alone

In my little blogger world, October Fridays are for flash fiction. Being an aspiring novelist, trying to keep a story under 300 words is harder than scaling Mount Everest. But I have persevered and cut this little vignette apart until it somewhat resembled 300 words. I hope you enjoy it, but I hope you will also remember my admonishment that fiction is best when used how it is intended - about 74,700 words longer!

Alone

 

Drip.

Drip.

The sound was pulling her. Pulling her out of the dream. She wanted to stay.

Reality won the wrestling match. She was here, in the dark, with the dripping somewhere nearby. She tried to push it away, to reach back into her dream and stay there forever. She didn’t know where she was, but it felt cold. The dark was so menacing, so tangible, as if it might extend icy black fingers and strangle her.

“Martin!”

Her husband. He would turn on the light. Stop the dripping. He was good at fixing problems. And he would hold her. Drive away the chill that had set her teeth to chattering.

No answer.

“Annie? Will?”

Surely one of her children would be there if Martin had to go out. Of course they had their own lives, but they were nearby.

She sat up, straining to see. Her hand reached for the lamp switch. But she hesitated when she found it. Pulled her hand back.

What if no one was there? Was it all a dream, conjured in the head of a demented old woman? Did she make it up; to cope with the decision she’d made 60 years earlier? Martin had asked her to be his wife. He’d promised to take her away from her miserable life. But she’d been afraid.

And she had her dreams. Her plans for college. For the chance of a lifetime – to be something. Somebody. A family might get in the way.

“Martin?” her voice sounded pathetic against thick blackness.

What did she have for all her concerns about money and status? At the end of her life, when her mind was shutting down and fears were her only companions – here she should be held and cared for by her family. A family that didn’t exist.

She released a bitter moan.

The light went on, blinding her with warmth and intensity. Martin’s arms surrounded her.

“I’m here, dear heart. Don’t cry.”

His gentle whisper brought their history to her fumbling mind. She recalled that moment with Martin on one knee before her.

She’d won the standoff with all the voices that tried to hold her back.

She’d said yes.

10 on 10

Today is the 10th of October.

Lest you accuse me of stating the obvious, there is a reason I bring it up. I am participating for the first time in the blog tradition of "10 on 10." Ten pictures, taken every hour for ten hours, on the tenth day of the month. 

I admit my "every ten hours" was not a careful science. But generally, I think I got the idea across. Here is my day. It starts at lunchtime, because before that I was madly doing all the things I do in the morning.

 Screech is a messy little man. But we like him anyway.

 Here is just a taste of the mess. My continual, unending mess. SIGH.

 We discussed appropriate comma use in third grade language today. I impressed upon Spirit that correct punctuation can save a life.

 Homework, homework, homework.

Ah, elliptical. We meet again. We seem to do this daily.

Kids. Gotta love these moments of harmony.

 Dinner. Chili. Easy, great tasting, healthy.

Took a walk with the Sarge and Screech tonight.     It was pretty.

 MacGyver and I relax by turning many electronics on. You're welcome to judge if you don't do the same thing.

And that was my day.