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.

Coffee Simplified

I am not the world's greatest coffee lover.

I realize that somewhat reduces my credibility with a coffee recipe. And I suppose you could argue that this is not necessarily "more simple" than putting in the grounds and the water and pressing the button. But if you are one of the millions currently enamored with the fall favorite "Pumpkin Spice Latte," then I suggest you give this a try. 

Why should I? You ask. 

My husband brought me home a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good. I could see why people were talking about them. But he said it cost him $5! Besides that, I didn't feel like the taste was quite balanced. It was heavy on the coffee taste and you could barely taste the pumpkin. So I guess if you feel the same way, that you'd like a little less coffee and a little more pumpkin, and you'd rather not sacrifice your arm or your leg for the taste, you might want to give this recipe a try.

This is my version, loosely based on several other recipes I found online:

PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE FOR TWO


1 cup espresso (I just used an overflowing tablespoon of coffee for 6 oz of water.)
2 cups milk 
1/2 - 1/4 cup sugar or Stevia in the Raw
4 tbsp of canned pureed pumpkin (Libby's 100%)
1 1/2 tsps of pumpkin pie spice
extra cinnamon to taste
1 tbsp vanilla


You can cook this on the stovetop, but I prefer to use my small crockpot. Just put everything in, whisk it till it's frothy, leave it on high for 2 hours, whisk again, top with whipped cream and a shake of cinnamon and you have your very own pumpkin spice latte for a fraction of the cost. 


Enjoy!

Homeschool Simplified

efore I begin, I must start by acknowledging that there are some people who think homeschooling is irresponsible.

I am obviously not one of them, since I engage in it every day. While I am definitely in favor of homeschooling when one is called to do it and has the resources, time and patience (at least mostly) to invest in it, homeschooling is not easy.

If I had a maid, a nanny and a cook I don't think homeschooling would be so overwhelming at times. But I have learned as we get into our groove this year that homeschooling can be simplified.

I'm not talking about simple as in - just get the basics out of the way. There are days that go that way, but what I mean by simplified  is this: Homeschooling is easier to accomplish if you set yourself up for success.

This is just as true on a large scale as it is on a small one, but the one I have trouble with is the latter. I can get so busy that I get to 9 am on Monday morning and find that I have absolutely nothing planned for the school day, so the whole time I am teaching I am also organizing books, pulling out papers and tests and grading last week's. Add this to trying to entertain the Sarge, pulling Screech from the dog bowl for the 700th time, making sure the laundry keeps moving and getting the kitchen cleaned up before lunch and we have an awfully bad day of school. Everyone gets grumpy; no one wants to learn anything, including the teacher.

This happened on Monday. It was so bad I took a picture in the midst of it, telling myself that I was going to figure out a way to make the next day the opposite, and then I was going to blog about it. So here we are!

Five ways to make it a good school day:

1. Get lessons ready the night before.

I did this Monday night by getting all papers needed for the day (and the week) copied or pulled out, setting them in the instructional books, and stacking those in a neat pile in order of how I would be tackling them. So from Sarge's Bible Storybook to Spirit and Mac II's Apologia Astronomy textbook (which I HIGHLY recommend, by the way... fascinating!) we were ready for the day and whatever it would bring us. I put Spirit's long addition and multiplication problems on the dry erase board, I stacked Spirit and Mac's homework on their desk with a sharpened pencil, I got out all manipulatives and art supplies.

2. Clean up.

I don't know if this happens in regular classrooms, but by the end of just ONE school day, our homeschool room is a complete mess. Bits of paper and crayon wrapper everywhere, Soggy pieces of crayon that have found their way into Screech's mouth and back out again, dog hair, crumbs from who knows what... add that to the piles of books, toys that Screech and Sarge pull out when I'm busy and dump everywhere - I think you get the picture. The way I got it clean was to first tell the three oldest to clean the room. Then I went behind and got all the little stuff (and bigger stuff) that they missed. End result, a nice, clean room. I think everyone learns better in a clean and organized space.

3. Lock the toy cabinet.

Our cabinet locks, and I bought it that way on purpose, to keep down on the mess. All of the toys are on the bottom shelf, and for awhile, I was opening the cabinet during school and letting Screech and Sarge have at it. This made for a mess so huge by the end of school that we couldn't walk across the floor. The answer is so simple I felt kind of brainless for having to learn the hard way. Take two or three favorite toys or sets out, and LOCK IT. They were still happy, and the mess was avoided.

4. Get moving so you can relax.

I tend to get a little snippy and rush when we are getting too close to the stop time and are still swamped with things to do. Getting up on time, getting moving and not letting myself get distracted first thing in the morning helps IMMENSELY with the overwhelming feeling of being late. Monday night I also started putting everyone's clothes out so we didn't have to deal with that in the morning either. It also helps to delegate responsibilities. Spirit or Mac can take the dog out and see to his needs, Spirit can change Screech most of the time.

5. Don't forget prayer time.

Monday was so harried that I didn't take the time for us to stop and think about our prayer focus, which ironically was "self-control" this week. On Tuesday we took time to all pray that we would learn and practice self-control in our lives and in homeschool.

Putting all of these tips into practice made a different week for homeschool. We enjoyed it more, we learned more, we fought less and never once felt like stomping off and crying. I suggest that if you are a homeschooling family and are struggling with feelings of being overwhelmed, you give these a try.

The Big Picture

Detail-oriented people astound me. I am so amazed by them that I had to marry one just to study them up close. I am about as completely "big picture" as it is possible to be, and my brain insists that I apply this thinking to everything in my life. This makes it extremely hard for me to find the reality in my many, many dreams.

Hence, God thought it best that he send MacGyver my way. My husband is about as detail driven as I am big picture. As you can imagine, this has not always made for a peaceful coexistence, but now that we've been married almost 11 years, we're starting to appreciate the other's ability, and work together more than we work against each other. I think given another 11 years, we'll be well on our way to getting some things done.

 



As I mentioned on my other blog, I call him MacGyver because he is just like the 80's TV character. Give the man a lollipop and a paperclip, he'll build you a time machine. I'm truly amazed by his uncanny abilities. They seem to be rubbing off on our second oldest child, a newly 6 year old. He's a chip off the old block, (not that you're old, MacGyver...) and I'm looking forward to having two of them in the house. So, henceforth when I'm mentioning our oldest son I will be referring to him as "Son of MacGyver" or MacGyver II.

 My oldest daughter, who is almost 8, shares more qualities with me. She can't be bothered for details or anything in life that is not first and foremost FUN. Her spirit runs with the wild horses that she loves more than life itself and so I have bequeathed her the blog name of Spirit.

  






 
My youngest daughter was literally born screaming for her way. She has an iron will of determination. If she had a theme song it would go something like Don't tell me that I CAN'T! This has been very handy when it comes to things like potty-training and as you can see... vacuuming. It doesn't work out so well when what Mom wants conflicts with what 3 year old wants. So I've nicknamed her The Sarge.

Then there's our fourth child. How does one begin to explain this nearly-eighteen month old? How does one explain ANY nearly-eighteen month old? This shenanigan in the picture is reminiscent of most of our day with dear little toddler. Which probably explains my desperate need to simplify. Littlest seems to think that he is the cutest thing ever to get up and walk and insistently lets us know when we aren't paying attention to him with a scream that reaches decibels not meant for the human ear. Therefore, he shall henceforth be known as Screech.

Now that you've met my crazy family, this blog is most likely starting to make perfect sense. I hope I'm not the only one with a busy, crazy, but strangely happy existence. I hope you will hang around and check back every few days, because I think I've learned some things by trial and error that I can share, and I'm hoping that you, my readers, will have many ideas to share as well.