Laundry Detergent

About a year or so ago, I started contemplating the idea of making my own laundry detergent.  Laundry detergent is expensive to say the least and evidently it is very bad for the environment, probably the manufacturing of it and disposal of the containers.  A friend of mine shared with me her recipe and I have been making it ever since.  It is very easy and very cheap.  Not only that, it is good if you have sensitive skin as it does not irritate your skin with perfumes and can be used for baby laundry as well.  Here is the recipe:

1 bar Castile Soap, grated (my current favorite is the almond scent)
1 c Borax powder (according to the Queen of Clean, this has all sorts of cleaning powers)
1 c Washing Soda (by Arm & Hammer, it is in the laundry aisle)
1/4 c Oxy Clean (not necessary, but I add it)

Mix it all together into a bumpy, granular mix.  Don't worry about it getting correctly dispersed.  Use 1T for alight/normal load and 2T for heavy/dirty loads.

I usually triple the recipe because I do a LOT of laundry and I don't want to be making it all of the time.  This last time I multiplied it by 6, but it wouldn't all fit in my container, so I don't think that I will do that again.  It is all very easy, the only thing that is annoying is grating the soap, but it the best way I have found to do it is in our food processor.

I also have a recipe for laundry rinse, I don't make it, I just use straight vinegar in my fabric softener dispenser to make sure that all of the germs are washed away.  Don't worry, your clothes won't smell like vinegar, I promise!

Laundry Rinse
1 gal white vinegar
25-30 drops essential oil.

One thing Leads to Another

Plain brown cabinets.

And since we painted the entire house...why not redo the cabinets. I have never really liked our bathroom counter. I don't like the marble (too old looking) and the cabinets are really basic. So we painted them a creamy white to match all of the trim.

Painted Cabinets

And since we were painting, we might as well move the toilet to paint behind it. Well, that turned into replacing the toilet! Of course, Now I want new countertops, new towels (we have had ours since our wedding 8 years ago!) and new drapery...maybe. Thankfully our shower already got redone, although I would love to redo the floors to match...it NEVER ends!

Paint

So...another reason (excuse) why I haven't blogged is our weekend activities and home improvement. Easter weekend we repainted pretty much our entire house! The funny thing is it was all because of one little patch in the hall. When we moved in there was a digital thermostat that BG didn't like I guess...so he changed it. Being the Type A guy that he is, he patched and painted the area, and it never looked right. He tried EVERYTHING! We tried the paint cans in the garage, we went and got a can of the actual paint, we used texture to make sure that wasn't the issue. After living with it for a couple of years, he decided we should just go ahead and repaint the hall....and if we were going to repaint the hall, we might as well paint the entire rest of the house. So since we are at it...why not change the color. We ended up going from a greenish tan to a sunny yellow in most of the house. It has dramatically helped lighten the house up since our ceilings are low. And while we are at it...why not just paint the hall bath and our master bath? So we went from having only painted the kids rooms, to having repainted all but one bathroom, the playroom and the kitchen/laundry room! So....here are some before and after pics...
My wall of crosses in the hall before.

The dining room before.

The den after. Much brighter!

Playroom Overhaul

Our playroom is tiled, which I love because it is easy to clean and it is not carpet! The only problem is that the tile was not sealed when it was put is. I would mop, and mop, and mop and still, the grout was dirty. So, when my mom was here for Linus' birthday, she helped me clear out the playroom completely. Then while she organized and wiped down the toys, I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I went through 5 or so grout brushes and finally got some clean floors. Then I mopped them a couple of times and sealed it, so hopefully they will stay clean.

The nasty dirty tile. The grout is supposed to be white.

All cleaned out except for the big stuff.

Once it was dry, Mom and I put everything back in it, all re-organized. I love the way it looks now and the kids do too. I also think it is a much better use of space, before, everything was pretty much pushed to the edge. There is now a boy section and a girl section, of course neither kids respects those boundaries, but that is totally fine with me! Here are some before and after pics.

Linus' side, closest to the Den so that you can still watch him.

The middle section with toys for both of them and their cute little table. This is right across from the bookshelf as well.

SD's side, complete with her kitchen and baby stuff. We have since moved the easel and that is now where her dollhouse (or doghouse as she calls it) is, which is great because before it was in our front room!

The Great Flood of 2009

On Monday afternoon, I received a call from BG saying that he had received a call from his mom that he never wanted to receive. She called him and said, "You wouldn't happen to be on your way home, would you?" He made the decision, that although he wasn't on his way home before the call, he was now on his way home. This is how the story was recounted to me...

My MIL was taking SD to the bathroom and after she flushed, she was helping her get dressed and wash her hands. SD said, "Nana, I wet" that is when my MIL realized that she too was wet. She turned around to see water POURING out of the toilet. We still don't know exactly what happened or what caused it, but basically, the hall toilet was overflowing!! She quickly put SD and Linus down for their naps and started trying to get it under control. She wasn't able to turn off the water to the toilet and the tank was not filling up, so the water was continuing to pour out of the toilet. She finally stuck a role of toilet paper in the tank so that the water would stop.

By that time, I think BG was home and they started the task of cleaning up the flood. Basically, the water was all down the hall, in Linus's room, in the kids bathroom, in the front hall and flowing out onto the front porch from under Linus's window! I now have 3 rugs that are still drying out and I am pretty sure that they used every single towel in our house. I ended up doing 6 loads of towels!!!!!

Thankfully, as of right now, there is no damage to our beautiful wood floors or anything else. We still have fans blowing in all the affected areas to help dry them out and the rugs are still a work in progress, but we were very fortunate. As soon as the rugs get dry, I will be using the rug cleaner (that I almost gave away!) to get them all nice and clean!!!

Cleaning Again

I was looking through my prayer journal and noticed my New Year's Resolutions/Hopes for 2009. One of my goals was to stay on my cleaning schedule. I am HORRIBLE with follow through, and this has been no exception! I have done pretty well with the beginning of the week, but by Thursday, aka bathroom day, I fall off the wagon. And as for my monthly deep cleaning, I have done okay on it, but not stellar.

I really felt like it was time for a re commitment to this particular goal. This is a great time to renew my dedication to cleaning, because I am on a 6 month rotating schedule, so I am about to be on round 2 of the plan. I think that women are called to be happy at home. I don't think that this necessarily means that you have to be a stay at home mom or wife, but I do think that it means that your primary focus (on Earth) should be your family and your home. I think these days we are so busy outside of the home, that we do not focus on our biggest investment. You spend lots of money paying for your house, why not keep it nice and why not spend your time there instead of spending money spending time elsewhere! So, off my soapbox and back to cleaning....

I clean a little every night and try to stay on top of it. It is so much easier for me to do a little every night than to waste an entire Saturday cleaning instead of spending time with my family. I think it is also good to get your kids involved. SD helps me almost every time I clean, if she is awake. Most of the time, I do my cleaning after the kids go to bed, usually from about 8-9 and then that gives me time to relax before I go to bed, whether it is watching TV/cuddling with BG, reading, or scrapbooking. Some days it doesn't get done, but I am trying to get better about just picking it up the next day, instead of letting it throw my whole routine off!

I read in my Bible Study recently that it is a good idea to have a cleaning caddy with the proper supplies in each room. I think I am going to modify this to be by day. See, I do all one cleaning action in a day, I don't do it by room. I think this is more effective, because I don't have to drag out all of my supplies each time and my house is only about 2,000 sq ft, so there is not THAT much ground to cover. I think if we had a two story house, it would be a little different, but since our house is one story, this works. The only problem with getting more cleaning caddies, is I just don't know where they would fit in my organized laundry room!

Have fun cleaning!

Travel Time

We just got back from being out of town for a while. We went to see my parents and participate in Fiesta, but more on that later. As I was running around like a chicken with its head cut of getting a family of 4 ready to leave town, I started thinking, why am I doing all this to go out of town? But when I got home, I was so thankful that I had done it! So, what was I doing to get ready? Well...

1. Change all of the sheets
2. Get all of the laundry done (including the sheets)
3. Clean out the fridge (we were going to be gone for 5 days)
4. No dishes in the sink
5. All papers, etc. filed away
6. Toys picked up
7. Kids, husband and self packed
8. Ironing finished
9. All trash taken out

The things I wanted to do, but ran out of time:
1. Clean the floors
2. Clean the bathrooms

It was so nice to come back to a semi-clean house and not be stressed about getting it all done before going to work on Monday. Good thing too, because we didn't get back on Sunday until 5 and the kids were a little on edge after being in the car for almost 5 hours. I just had to get to the grocery store to restock the fridge, and get right back on my cleaning schedule :)

So, what do you do before you go out of town?

Chores

We are trying to teach SD some basic chores, like cleaning up her toys, putting her plate up after dinner, etc. The other morning, I asked her to help me make her bed. I pulled up the sheets and comforter and then left the pillows and blankets up to her. She did a pretty good job!

Fixing the Sink

As part of my focus this month, the kitchen, I had it on my task list to clean out under the sink. So I took everything out and was wiping it down with the Clorox wipes, when I found a leak. Of course, it turned out to be a bigger project than expected, but nothing that BG couldn't handle! Once we finally got the right parts, etc. it was operating better than before and the disposal now does not throw up in the other sink when you run it.

Because of the part issue, the contents from under the sink spent a good deal of time on the kitchen floor. Thankfully, SD didn't really mess with them and Linus can't move just yet! But, what did SD do, well she organized them of course!



Lining up the spray bottles.

Organizing the soaps/

And last but not least, lining up everything!

The cool thing is that now underneath my sink is really clean and really organized!

Laundry Room Remodel

I have been wanting to re-decorate my laundry room for a long time. I know it sounds silly, but I spend a lot of time in there. I got part of my motivation from two of my friends who had all boys, so they painted their laundry rooms pink, because that is pretty much the only place they could have pink! My other inspiration was from I'm an Organizing Junkie's Monthly Roundup! I started this project Thanksgiving weekend, but unfortunately, I didn't get it finished that in time to get it up as part of the round up!



So, here is what it looked like before, white and boring, yet very functional.

















I caulked and painted the inside of the cabinets as well, so I had to put all of my cleaning and laundry stuff in the pantry until it dried.





I got the first three door done relatively quickly, but since it took 5 coats of red on each door, the last one seemed to linger on. It was like this for almost a month!











And the finished project! I love it!!

The best thing about this project...it didn't cost me any money!!! We had the tan paint because it is the color of our walls. The red is from our kitchen and I had knobs left over from SD's old dresser!

New Living Room

As promised, here are pics of the new look in the living room!

The living room window.

Cozy reading chair. Complete with lamp, comfy chair and warm blanket.

The flower arrangement that I did with the help of my mom, MIL and SIL. I had the idea in my head and found the stuff and then the rest of them coached my SIL on how to put it together while I sat in the reading chair and hursed Linus!

I totally felt like that show on HGTV re-design. Although some of the stuff was new, a lot of it I had in my house and we just rearranged! I love decorating! Pretty much my whole house is done now, I even decorated the laundry room! BG thought I was crazy, but I spend a LOT of time in there people! I wll post pics of that after I redo the cabinets in there, again, BG thinks I am crazy for wanting to do that as well!

Cleaning Schedule

Monday - Front Rooms (Formal LR & DR), Floors (sweep & mop), Study

Tuesday - Laundry, Iron, Kids Rooms, Vacuum (the day I work from home)

Wednesday - Bathrooms

Thursday - Playroom

Friday - Kitchen, Laundry

Saturday - Floors, Iron, Windex, and Dust



The night before the day I worked from home I did bigger stuff since I didn't have to get dressed the next morning, I could wake up a little later. Also, the day I work from home, I can multi task, like do laundry while I work, so I usually do!



When I do a room, like the front rooms for example, I pick up, dust and windex if need be. When I say floors, I have all hard floors in my house, so this is all of the hard floors, unless that "room" is done another day. For example, the playroom, I will do those floors when I do the playroom.

Little by Little

I am totally a Type A person, as most of you know. The problem is with a Type A, is that you want to do things, but sometimes they seem so overwhelming that you don't know where to start, so you don't! This is the case for me a lot of times.

Take my weight loss for example. I have never really had to lose weight, I just have had to maintain. That is until I had kids, but they were totally worth every pound! After I had Linus, I was pretty depressed about the flab around my mid-section and the way I looked. But then, I took my big goal and broke it down. I divided the remainder of the year into two week chunks and gave myself a little goal for each time period. I didn't say, run a marathon by the end of the year, I said run 2 miles, 3 times a week at 4/1 and then do it at 5/1. I also gave myself a goal weight and am steadily losing weight to achieve that. If I don't hit my target weight, then fine, but I will keep going and try not to beat myself up over it.

Then comes cleaning... I love my house to be really clean, but lately I have let it go. Part of the reason is that we are doing a study on Sabbath, and I am trying to use Sunday for family time and doing what I want to do, not what I ought to do. And when Saturday is full of social stuff, that means the house doesn't get cleaned! The thought of getting the house really clean seems so overwhelming to me. So, on Sunday I sat down and made a list of all that I wanted to do. Then I broke it up into little chunks to do throughout the week. Monday night was the first night and when I finally had time to do anything it was 9 pm. At first I was like, no, I can't finish my list for today, so I will just save it for Tuesday. But then I remembered something from this book that I am reading. It said to make a list, but understand that you might not get to everything on the list. That gave me such freedom in list making that I hadn't had before! It is better to make a list and a plan and just realize that it won't always happen, than to not make a list. You get more done if you make a list! Once I get the cleaning done, I am going to try and deep clean everything. The devotional I am reading suggests a book that talks about that, so I am going to look for it at the library today!

I will post my cleaning schedule tomorrow as it stands for this week. I am going to try and do a new schedule that allows me to do something each day and then I can really enjoy my family on the weekends and do other stuff that I want to do, like scrapbooking! So, tackle it little by little. Then all of a sudden, it will not seem so overwhelming and it will be done! Another piece of advise I am trying to follow is to do it immediately. Easier than letting it loom in your brain as something that needs to be done. By the time you have worried about it, you could have already had it done. Speaking of, the dryer is buzzing, so I better fold the clothes before they sit there any longer and I think about how I don't want to fold them!

Jack and Jill

There are a lot of things that I miss about our Frisco house, but I enjoy where we are much better. Not to mention my house now has character and trees!!! There is a lot that I love about our house, but most recently, I have come to love the Jack and Jill bathroom. In our Frisco house, the kids bathroom was across the hall from their rooms, and while that made it convenient for guests, I am really glad that their bathroom is now between their rooms. I didn't really appreciate the bathroom until I had two kids. I can actually see and hear both of them from the bathroom or from one of their rooms. The other night I was giving them a bath together and got Linus out to get him in his jammies. It was so nice because while I was getting him dressed, I could hear and see SD and make sure she was okay. Then, once he was all dressed, I let him play on a blanket while I got SD out and dressed. Even when I was in her room, I could see and hear him, so there was no reason to worry. I am sure that they will complain about sharing a bathroom later in life, but what doesn't kill them will only make them stronger!

Clean Underwear

Did your mom ever tell you to make sure you wore clean underwear in case you got in a car accident? Well, that is the phrase that came to mind last night during our "ordeal."

Last night around 2:30 our burglar alarm went off, and man is it loud! We bolted out of bed and BG started yelling at the top of his lungs (he was still a little asleep, but was also trying to scare off the potential burglar). The dogs were going crazy barking and surprisingly SD slept through it all!!! I ran into her room, BG grabbed his shotgun and the phone, called 911 and walked around the house, while SD lay sleeping in her room with me sitting next to her and the dogs on the floor. BG came into her room minutes later and we shut ourselves in there and waited for the police to arrive.

I will say that after last night, I was very impressed with my local public servants, they were quick to arrive, thorough and polite on top of all that! So the police arrived and checked our entire house, inside and out. They were really nice and complementary. The younger officer reminded me a lot of my BF's husband who is a police officer. He asked to see SD since he had seen her pictures around the house, asked us what we were having and also complimented us on having a nice house. That is what made me think of the clean underwear thing.

You never know who is going to be in your house when! Thankfully, we keep a pretty clean house and pick up everything each night. Sometimes we slack and don't pick up the playroom, but thankfully last night was not one of those nights. I know it sounds silly, but I am glad that the house looked nice in the middle of the night. Not only that, but thankfully, I was decently dressed. I am in the "can't get cool" part of pregnancy, so my nighttime attire is not always "decent".

So anyway, there was no sign of forced entry, we are still not sure why the alarm went off. SD finally woke up at the very end of the ordeal and I just couldn't leave her in her room by herself. So, the three of us piled in our bed, along with the two dogs, and had trouble going back to sleep until 5 or so this morning. Thankfully I am working from home this morning before my Dr. appt!

The Clean Team

I have come to the conclusion that clean/neat does not mean the same for everyone. What I mean is that when you say someone is really neat or clean, there are different types. I have observed the following:

Messy Clean
This describes my MIL. She cleans the most out of anyone that I know, but she is a mess!!! Let me explain, when she does stuff, she makes a mess, but since the cleans so much you would never know it unless she does it at your house. She was cooking at our house a while back and when I came home, I noticed that there was flour in weird places, spots of who knows what on the counter, etc. (not that I am complaining, just observing here) The thing is, I am sure she wiped up a little, but expected it to really get cleaned when I did my cleaning . This is not the case, because I am a different kind of clean (see below). My husband is this way as well. He can not, not make a complete mess when doing anything, he shakes spices from 10 feet above the pan and can't believe that it doesn't all make it in the pan. On the same note though, he does a good job of "cleaning" his areas (read garage or outside) when he is done.

Cluttered Clean
This describes my mom. She has stuff everywhere, nick knacks, pictures, baskets, etc. but she is always cleaning. Always wiping down the counters after every time she is in the kitchen. Constantly cleaning something, but there is clutter, so it doesn't always seem as "clean" as it would if there were not so much stuff.

Me, well, I am totally OCD and do both. I call myself

OCD Clean, De-Cluttered, Really Needs Therapy for this stuff
Let me explain how I clean/obsess. I am a total no-clutter person, well let me rephrase, if there is clutter, it has a file. That is how I roll. Everything has a place and it has to be there, not on some random counter or I pretty much will have a melt down. I clean constantly, I am constantly wiping down counters, sweeping up a mess, vacuuming, dusting, something. I have dark hard woods and it about sends me to the loony bin to see dust on them which is very visible when it is sunny outside. This is slightly hard to maintain with an almost 2 year old, but I try. They funny thing is that she is picking up on it, I think she likes that she knows where stuff is, etc. I even clean her playroom every night and the toys go back in the same place every time! I let it go last night only because I worked late and I couldn't even look in there this morning, one day is about as long as I can let it go. I have gotten better about deep cleaning every weekend, but only slightly, and while I may be able to leave it for a while, it makes me crazy every time I see it. Also, I don't make messes when I do stuff, I do them neatly, or if I spill something, it does not sit there for any amount of time, it is immediately cleaned up. This works really well for me, because then I don't have to scrub and deep clean all of the time if it is always clean. This does cause slight complications when I live with a man who doesn't do this and his mom who is at our house during the week doesn't do it either. Oh, well, I guess it is a small sacrifice to make.

What kind of clean are you? Do you have any other types of clean?

Big Girl Room

SD's big girl room is all finished and she is actually sleeping in it! I just decided to take the plunge on Saturday at nap time. It only took two pops on her leg to get her to stay in her bed and then she took a 2 hour nap! So far so good, she has taken 3 naps in it now and slept two nights in her bed with little to no issues. She did wake up this morning around 6, which is much earlier than normal and came into the kitchen and scared me half to death, but at least she didn't walk around in the middle of the night. We have not been closing the door all of the way because I have wanted to check on her a lot, to make sure she didn't slip in between the wall on the bed, but I think we will be closing it now. She can't really open it with ease since the door sticks a little, so that might help my sanity! She loves playing in her new "pink room" as she calls it.

Here are the pics...

The princess in her pillows

Check out that leather kick pleat. I am really proud of this because I have never done one before. My friend Dallena told me the basics of what to do, but I had to do it by myself with no pattern or anything!

My mom was here this past weekend (a b-day surprise, more on that later) and we got a ton done in her room, so I kept the pace going when she left and finished sewing the pillows and bed skirt and embellished the curtains. It is way cute if I do say so myself. I couldn't get a good picture of the curtains, so I will have to post those later. All that is left to do is add nobs to her dresser and hang some stuff on the walls. All in all, I am proud of her new room. Not only is her room done, but Linus' is on its way. I moved all of SD's stuff into her new closet and dresser so that freed up her old room. Mom and I washed about 15 loads of clothes this weekend. SD had tons of new clothes for spring and Linus has a ton too! I finally got his room all organized last night and put away all of the clothes. I even changed the pink girly sheet on the bed to his green one (I know, I know a little premature, but just in case...) The only thing we need to do in his room is paint and take down the pink ribbons. Other than that, if he comes early, we should be good! So there you go for my productive weekend. I will be posting about my birthday soon, hopefully, it was AWESOME!

Almost Finished

Here are pictures of SD's room almost finished! We have only had one incident where she walked in and leaned against the freshly painted door jam and ruined her way cute outfit!

The overhead light makes the color look a little weird.

This is just with natural light.

And my little helpers!

Pretty in Pink

We started painting SD's room this weekend. BG had to patch lots of holes and take out nails, etc. that were left in the walls. The walls really needed to be painted, and it already looks so much better. After he patched everything, we primed the entire room. BG said this was necessary since it is an older house and there were lots of patches. We are even painting ALL of the trim, fun times, so the whole room got a good priming. We got that finished on Saturday while SD took a great nap. Then on Sunday we started painting. SD tried to help a little, it was pretty funny, she only got a little paint on her! Unfortunately SD did not take a very good nap, but we finally got it finished, well the walls at least. And it is PINK!! The trim is not done yet, but I guess that will be this weekend's project. Here are some before and after pics for your enjoyment! The trim and doors (which are almost done) are going to be a brown color. I will post the final pics when we are done with it (I still have to modify the curtains and make the bedskirt, not to mention hang all of the cute cowgirl stuff we have gotten!).

The Before Shots

Isn't the picture window beautiful! I need to hang some bird feeders so SD can watch the birds, she loves them!

The priming, looks a little sterile doesn't it

The most professional painter:

Complete with her mini-me water bottle around her neck.

And so the pink begins...

Oh, and during this process, we decided that when SD moves over to her big girl room, we will paint Linus' room. We are going to do the same brown trim and paint the room some shade of blue instead of pink! I will keep you updated on that!!!

Strange Things

Okay, I just wanted to do a little blog about this, because I think it is so strange. So, I was emailing with a friend the other day who lives in my old neighborhood, and she told me that our old house was already for sale again! Isn't that crazy, we just sold it in May and now they are already moving away. So, of course I went online to try and find it and it pretty much looks exactly the same as it did when we left. They have not changed much, except for the front door, which looks pretty from the pictures and a light fixture in the kitchen. The people who bought our house were moving here from Vegas to be closer to her sister who was sick, with what I am not sure. But anyway, you have to wonder why they are moving out, did they not like it? Was Texas just too much of a beating for them? Could she not find a job? Anyway, Collin County (where we used to live) is a pretty transient area, so I am not all that surprised and the neighborhood we lived in has lots of houses for sale right now! Anyway, it was just weird to see it for sale already.

We lived in that house for 4 years and loved it, except that it was so far away from everything! We had a great corner lot and wonderful neighbors. We don't like to move, and hopefully we will not be moving ever again! Some people think that is weird, but we are creatures of habit and don't revel in change. What are your thoughts on this? Do you like to move every couple of years? Do you like to stay put?