The Never-ending Menace of a Mother

Or anyone for that matter: laundry. It has to be done, and you need a cleaning agent to do it.

Some time last year, my MIL and I were talking about the prices of laundry detergent, and the strong perfumes and dyes in the detergents. We both have to pay close attention to perfumes and dyes in detergents. My FIL has very sensitive skin, so there are only a handful of detergents that can be used for him. I use cloth diapers, and perfumes and dyes can clog up the fabric, irritating the baby's skin as well as making the diapers less absorbent.

In an effort to save money and use less chemicals on our clothes (and consequently, our skin), I began looking into home-made detergent options. I found this website. Not only are there several detergent recipes to choose from, but there is a pretty exhaustive FAQ's section that was complied in response to the questions generated by the detergent recipes.

I went with Recipe #1:

1 quart boiling water

2 cups or 1 bar grated bar soap (A regular cheese grater works great. No pun intended!)

2 cups Borax

2 cups Washing soda

Add the grated soap to the boiling water and stir over low heat until dissolved.

In a large bucket (with lid) combine water/soap mixture with the Borax and Washing Soda, stirring until dissolved.

Add 2 gallons of water and mix well.

Keep covered, stir before each use (it will gel). Use about a 1/4 cup per load.

I chose to use Ivory soap rather then Fels Naptha (which is what a lot of people use) for the grated bar soap because that is what I had on hand the first time. I am glad I did, for one thing Ivory does have a slight scent, which is nice, but not heavy, and for the other thing it is very gentle on the skin, more so than Fels Naptha, I believe.

I am currently on my second bucket of this detergent and we have been very happy with it. Our laundry comes out clean and fresh smelling. Once in awhile I do still use a little bleach, particularly with the whites. I also use white vinegar in the rinse cycle for the diapers to help break up any soap residue.

I have been asked by a few different people about the price difference. I knew before starting this venture that the home-made detergent would be cheaper, but I never ran any numbers until now. It seemed a good thing to include in this post. :)

Here are the three main detergents I previously used:

Dreft 100 oz. (64 loads) $15.97

Tide 150 oz. (96 loads) $17.50

All Free and Clear 150 oz. (96 loads) $10.97

(Prices and images from Walmart.com)

For the home-made detergent:

One box each of Borax and Washing Soda totaled $7.50. I will get four or five batches of detergent out of each box. Let's say four batches, that's $1.87.

The Ivory soap is about $0.38/bar ($3.76 for a pack of ten).

That puts one batch of detergent at approximately 144 loads and costs around $2.25 (+a little time and water). That looks like a savings to me!

Of course, laundry still can be a menace even when you have cheap detergent.

I have finally found a system that seems to work for me. Instead of doing laundry when it gets piled up, I stick to a weekly rotation: colors on Monday, darks on Wednesday, and whites on Friday. Diapers get washed whenever we run low. This means that I have a load or two that I do each of those days, but it ensures that each pile gets done once a week, so we don't run out of anything. It also makes laundry folding a more manageable job.

Once the laundry is folded I have the boys put away most of it, their own laundry, as well as all the linens. They love it, so it isn't really even viewed as a "chore."

The Nursery

With the boys getting bigger and more active, and a new baby on the way, we decided it was time to separate the nursery from the playroom.

Our house has a small, sunny room at the end of the hallway that has, up until now, been our guest bedroom. I moved all the nursery furniture into that room and it fits perfectly.

The crib made up and ready for a tiny newborn. With Winnie-the-Pooh to keep watch.

I made these curtains for Edmund's nursery in Virginia Beach. This was my first attempt at curtain making and I did not make them the right width, so now, for the first time, I get to see them as they should be, nice and fully ruffled.

The Halls bought this antique cradle when Edmund was born, but since they didn't have much space to store it we get to use it here at our house. I will actually move it into my bedroom once the baby is born.

And the changing table all ready to go.

This room, like so many others in our house, is sparse on the decorations, but hopefully I will be able to find some nice wall hangings in the next few months.

The best thing about this room though is the many blessing s that it contains. All the furniture in here was given to us, as well as most of the baby necessities and all the infant clothing we have. Though we have moved and lost contact with some of these people we have a constant reminder of their love and friendship when we go into the nursery.

An Unexpected bit of Decorating

Recently, I have seen a lot of bloggers talking about decorating with sticks and grass for the Autumn, now that most of the flowers are gone. They all vary slightly, but for the most part it involves getting sticks, either from the craft store or a handy bush in the yard, and arranging them in a vase, sometimes with glue and string to secure and fancify them.

Our fireplace is in our sitting room. In one corner of the room next to the fireplace is a low, deep cabinet. Jaired uses the space on top of the cabinet to store logs for fires, and it keeps them pretty tidy. The kindling has been a problem though. Last year, we would go outside every evening to bring in kindling, but this year it has been just stacked up on the floor, making a big mess. Today, in a effort to tidy up the house in preparation for visitors I brought an old galvanized bucket up from the basement and stuck all the sticks in. I immediately noticed how it looked a little like a bouquet of sticks.


The bucket works great to keep all the sticks together and catches any bits of bark that fall off. It also adds a nice touch to our countryish sitting room. And it was free and simple to put together.

Home: Beautiful and Organized

Recently I have been following several blogs about home organization and decor. I don't have a natural "eye" for decorating, nor do I currently have the money (or the car!) to go out and buy the things I need, or think I need, for organizing my house. So I am learning to work with what I have to make my house beautiful. One way to have a beautiful home is to just keep it clean! A good source for ideas on this is The Flylady.

Here is what I have started with:
Morning routine:
Get up immediately! If Nathaniel needs to be nursed, sit in the rocking chair, nursing in bed is a sure way to sleep in.
Get dressed, including doing my hair.
Make my bed
Breakfast

After breakfast:
Immediately clean up the kitchen, put dishes in dishwasher, wipe table and highchair, et cetera. If there are only a few dishes to hand wash I sometimes will set those aside for washing after lunch, but they need to be filled with water so they will be easy to clean.
If the bed wasn't made already, make it.
Wipe down the bathroom sinks and toilet.
Do the housecleaning job of the day: Vacuum, sweep, dust, laundry, et cetera.

Don't get on the computer until all the above things are done!

After lunch I clean up the kitchen again, then either take a nap or begin whatever project I am working on. I also decide what we will have for dinner.

After making dinner, if there is time before we eat, I clean up the preparation dishes. I also tidy up the house so it will look pretty when Jaired gets home. I do not do this because I don't want him to see what a mess the house is, but that he will be able to feel relaxed, and enjoy coming home even more! :)

After dinner, I clean the kitchen for the last time. Clean it BEFORE going off to play with my boys or spend time with Jaired. Since we eat very shortly after Jaired gets home, this is a good time for him to spend with Edmund.

Before going to bed, I walk through all the rooms of the house and make sure everything is where it should be. I fold and put away any laundry, put any toys Edmund did not pick up into his room, et cetera. I also pick out my clothes for the next day.

As you can see I try to do damage control by doing things right away instead of waiting for things to pile up. I also try to involve Edmund in all these chores. There is no need to wait until a child is 5, 6, or 7 to have him help, especially because he is already contributing to the mess!

So tell me, what do you do to make your day flow more smoothly and your house more beautiful?

P.S. I have many ideas of other things I would like to do, but I will talk about those as they happen. :)