Goal!

Last night I played soccer with a few people in our neighborhood and I scored my first GOAL!!! Boy that felt good.

Fact and Funny

Snakes are better pets to hold than spiders.

Snakes poop A LOT especially when they are on your lap and you are not expecting it.

It takes a whole load to wash the items a snake poops on.

Luckily it happened to MICHAEL and not to ME.

He now has a clean blanket, jeans, and T-shirt.

YES...the homemade laundry detergent works GREAT!!

Luckily he can do his own laundry.

:)

QUESTION

Aren't I too young (at 48) to be getting stuff from AARP??? My husband (who is 4 months older than me) has not gotten anything and I keep getting stuff AND he is not letting me forget it :(

Answers

To those of you who have questions about my recipe for laundry soap. It is very mild for the skin. I have nieces and nephews who have very sensitive skin and their mother's love this stuff. It is great for those with allergies. I have not read of a single person having an allergic reaction to it and I know plenty of people who are sensitive to the name or store brand detergent. It is much easier to mix up than about anything. The soap is quicker to grate than cheese and then you just dump the other ingredients in and mix up. If you have a food processor it is even faster. It is easy to clean the grater after grating...after all it is just soap so it washes right off. I give it a quick stir or shake before I add the detergent to the machine. I have bottles of partially used Tide Free (he kind) and All that I don't plan on using and is just collecting dust in my laundry room. My daughter uses this as does a few of my sisters and a niece (that I know of). To Karin, I got the idea from a friend of mine who lives in Iowa (she is Frisbee Family Fun Forever on my blog list) and then did a lot of research on the internet. She actually had a recipe online for a gel laundry detergent but I ran across the powder one online and it looked easy and so I decided to give it a try. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and will never go back to store bought laundry detergent. And just FYI, the fels naptha is $1.19 per bar, the borax is $2.98, and the baking soda is $2.12 for a 4 pound box I don't remember the price for the washing soda but I know it was less than $3.00. I have made 2 batches of it as I recall and right now I have more than half the box of borax left and just barely less than half of the washing and baking soda left. So the most expensive part is the fels naptha but even at that it is only a few pennies a load. Lois, I hadn't thought about whether it is good for the environment but I think that there is a lot less waste of containers for the store bought detergent and I am sure it does nothing to harm the environment. Luckily we live in an area where you can recycle just about anything (which I love) so that really isn't much of an issue if you just throw your old store bought boxes or jugs into the recycle bin but this makes even less waste. I welcome any more questions and hopefully I answered the ones out there.

Laundry Detergent

I have been trying new things and this is one of them. It works great...better than store bought and MUCH cheaper.

1 bar Fels Naptha soap (found in the laundry aisle of your local grocery store...Kroger here in TX)
2 cups washing soda (NOT baking soda...in a yellow box in laundry aisle at Kroger)
2 cups borax (you can buy this a Walmart)
2 cups baking soda (cheapest if you buy at Walmart in the laundry aisle)

Grate soap with hand grater or use a food processor. Add other ingredients and mix well. Store in an air tight container (I use a recycled 2 1/2 quart ice cream bucket). Use 2 Tablespoons per load. Can use with either a front loader or a top loader as it is low sudsing. I have a front loader and when I was using store bought there were always suds left...even when using the he type. I don't have that problem with this...PLUS as I mentioned earlier...IT WORKS GREAT. As an added idea, try using vinegar in the rinse cycle instead of fabric softener. It works fairly well and doesn't leave a smell. I use it with towels and jeans but my whites still have static with vinegar so I use a Bounce sheet for them.

More recipes to come :)

Wheat Grinder revisited

The wheat grinders came in and I have one extra. It is for sale and is $130 which is a $50 savings from the price on Emergency Essentials. To see what it looks like go to my previous post at http://burke-works.blogspot.com/2009/04/wheat-grinder.html.

This is amazing

This is Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent. If you haven't seen it enjoy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY