How to make your own laundry detergent

I started making laundry detergent right after we moved to Denver and I'd used up all our pre-bought stuff. I like the powdery stuff - it's easier to measure. Plus it's easy to make, and it's cheap.

This is SO EASY and SO FAST. It can easily be doubled or tripled or whatever you want.

WHAT YOU NEED:

- 1 bar of soap (You can use special laundry soap if you want, but I've just been eating through my enormous people-soap stockpile. Ivory is my favorite because it has the greatest percentage of soap in it. When the stockpile is empty and I'm making my own soap, I'll be using that.)
- 1 cup of Borax (I've never been to a grocery store that didn't carry it in the detergent area.)
- 1 cup of Washing Soda (I get mine from Ace Hardware - you can either buy it online and ship-to-store, or you can call and ask them to order it for you if they don't stock it. There's an Ace right near the church and I haven't found any local hardware stores yet, but when I do, I will ask if the local joint carries it. Buy local, and all. But for now, Ace is easiest.)
- Jar or other container for the detergent (I use a pickle jar. It needs to be able to hold at least 2.5 cups of stuff.)
- Food processor or maybe a blender, or a cheese grate and a bowl
- An implement capable of measuring out by the tablespoon, approximately (I use a plastic measuring spoon that the dish disposal chewed up. Having something dedicated to the laundry area will make your life easiest.)
- Funnel, optional
- Dust mask, optional, if you have sensitive lungs like I do. This stuff can kick up some powder.

And that's it!


HOW YOU DO IT:

Cut the bar of soap into hunks and put it in the food processor until it's reduced to a fine powder. (Alternatively, grate the soap as finely as you can.)

Dump the borax and the washing soda into the food processor with the soap.* Or, dump everything into a bowl and mix it up by hand. You want it nice and combined and awesome.

Pour into your jar. (I fancied mine up with my label maker, so that next time Brian takes it upon himself to do some laundry, he'll know to use the powder, and not all my Woolite, to wash his yard work clothes. This might or might not have happened at some point...)

Stick your measuring scoop in the jar, and stick the jar wherever it is you like to stick your laundry detergent.

DONE! (beside cleanup, of course. And when you're done cleaning up, toss the sponge or rag straight into the wash pile. You don't want to take any chances.*) All in all, it takes me maybe 10 minutes from start to finish.


I use a tablespoon for regular loads of laundry. I'll use 2 tbsp for huge or especially dirty loads. And that's it! One jar of this stuff lasts me about 2 months or so, and I typically do 3-ish loads per week. If I had a bigger jar, I'd double the batch and be all the more awesome because of it.


*Some people are concerned about having these ingredients in their food processor. I personally am not too concerned, but I do wash everything twice, once in the sink and again in the dishwasher. I've never had anything come out of the food processor tasting like soap or borax, and (to my knowledge) I haven't become ill as a result, either. I do make sure the dogs can't get into the kitchen when I'm working, because they are very 'licky' and Borax can, in high doses, be very toxic.

more on engagements

You GUYS!

I had some of the cutest stories in the comments on the engagement story post from last Friday.

Really, if you are at all interested in engagement stories, I'd recommend you go check out what some of these ladies wrote. (I'm pretty sure all the comments were from ladies.)

Have a loving day!

Engagement Story

Company Girl Coffee is a fun weekly link-up at Home Sanctuary. 

Lately I've been thinking about those days, so long ago, when Brian and I got together, got engaged, and got married. (All in the span of about 10 months. Yes, we are one of those couples.)

The year was 2007. I know. So long ago.

It's August. We'd been dating since the end of January or first of February (depending on your definition of dating) and I'd moved up to Richmond, where he was in school, that June. 

Brian's sister Kelley had been planning to attend UNC-Chapel Hill (GO HEELS!) and we'd planned to help her with moving into her dorm over the weekend of the 18th. But at some point beforehand, she'd decided to attend a nursing program in (well, near) Charlotte instead. Incidentally, I'd signed a lease on the house I was renting, and my move-in date was August 15. So of course, since we didn't need to move Kelley in, I wanted us to move ME in. Makes sense, right?

Brian protested. He'd made plans for us to go to a Japanese steakhouse with his college roommate, Barnes, (we call him Barnes) and he didn't want to bail on that since they don't get many chances to see each other. Ok, whatever. I wanted to hang out with my dog anyway, since he hadn't been able to make the move to Richmond yet. So we went to Chapel Hill that Friday. 

So it's Saturday now. We're going to hang out with Barnes. We had fun. Barnes is a funny guy. And who doesn't love hibachi chicken? I don't really remember what else we did that day. We had dinner plans with my (former) pastor Dave and his wife Angie, so we went back to my mom's place to get ready for that. At some point we stopped at a grocery store and picked up a chocolate peanut butter cake thingie to take. Somewhere along the way, I misplaced my cell phone - which is such a frequent occurrence that nobody bats an eye.

Brian insisted on wearing a suit for dinner. Here's the thing: when I'm over at Dave and Angie's, I usually end up rolling around on the carpet playing with their beagle. Ours is not really a 'dress up' kind of relationship. So I thought this was weird. Brian said that he had planned to talk to Dave about maybe doing our wedding (because we were planning to get married at some nebulous point in the future) and since that was a serious conversation, he wanted to wear a suit. Or something weird like that. By then I'd already learned not to ask questions because the answers tended to be odd. (Not much has changed.)

So he's in his suit, and I'm in some 'Sunday clothes' and only a little irritated by that. We're on the road. Brian's phone rings. He doesn't recognize the number and takes the call. It's Angie. Her son Taylor, who I think was 9 at the time, had injured himself on the trampoline and they needed to bail on dinner. So sorry. Hope you guys can have fun, maybe go to campus or something.

So we go to campus to scrounge up some fun. (In our dress clothes.)

We decide to park on Franklin Street, the north border of campus. We walk onto the upper quad, aka McCorkle place. It's an August afternoon in North Carolina, which can be translated in one word: muggy. Kids are milling around. Freshmen and their helicopter parents are overdressed and a little panicky. Folks are sitting on the grass, playing frisbee, shouting at friends they haven't seen in months. Not a bad place to be. I thought about how much I love that place and how much I miss it. (For those of you who don't know, the upper quad is the oldest part of campus. It's a big, sprawling quad with green grass, brick walkways, ancient oak trees and the occasional monument, all bordered by beautiful classroom buildings. They don't make campuses like they used to, that's for sure. The south edge of the upper quad is home to the Old Well, which might be the most well-known spot on campus. The north end is where Silent Sam stands, a monument erected in honor of students who left their studies to go fight in the Civil War. We had drumline practice by Silent Sam most days. Happy memories.)

We get approached by what apparently is a student journalist. She says she's writing a story about campus landmarks, and would we mind posing for a picture? Ok, sure, makes sense. I worked for the school magazine and I'm pretty sure I edited that story once or twice. She takes us over to the Davie Poplar bench. (Rabbit trail: the Davie Poplar is named after one of the founders of the University, William Richardson Davie. The legend is that Mr. Davie stated that as long as this tree stands, the University will stand, but when the tree falls, the University will crumble. The Class of...52? put a cement bench under the poplar, and the bench's legend is that a couple who kisses on the bench will be together forever.)


You see where this is headed. Sorta.


So the student (her name is Anna) asks us some questions and writes some stuff in her notepad, and then she asks if she can take our picture sitting on the bench. (I might have been suspicious by now.) She walks off, and I stand up, ready to go. Brian has stalled out on the bench, still holding my hand. He's fidgety. Lingering AND fidgety.

I sit back down and ask him if something is on his mind. (VERY SUSPICIOUS!)

He proposes. It was very sweet and heartfelt and made me love him so much more, and I don't remember a word of it. He wraps up by kneeling in front of me and offering an engagement ring while asking me if I would marry him.

I say yes. (Duh.)

We are...hugging? standing? sitting? I don't remember. And those students who were playing frisbee end their game, start humming, an assemble in a semi-circle in front of us, do-wopping and bee-bopping and whatever else it is that a capella groups do. I recognize some of them. Then, from behind us, out pops BARNES! Because, you see, Barnes was in an a capella group in college! And he'd been in on the whole thing.

So they sing our song and everybody is staring, and we're SO happy and it's glorious.

So there are hugs all around, phone calls, and then it's time to get dinner. Except we're too excited to eat. And then Brian calls Dave and says everything went off without a hitch, and we're on the way over with dessert. They were in on the whole thing. Which means, Taylor did not actually injure himself at all. And, the phone call from 'Angie' was actually from Kelley. She had a script. Brian wrote her a script. He had also taken my phone, so that it would make sense that 'Angie' would be calling him and not me. Over dessert, Brian said to me, 'and you even got your chocolate.' Because at some point, I had mentioned to him that maybe chocolate should be involved in our engagement. I was probably kidding. He did it anyway. He's a smart boy.


Aside: I had one of those moments - SO excited and happy, thoughts racing about what to do or say, wanting to make sure I actually say yes, wanting to make sure I look at him and not the bling, etc. etc. Actually, I didn't really even look at my ring until we'd finished our phone calls and everything. He'd designed it with a local jeweler. I love it.


Do you have a fun engagement story? What was going through your mind when your husband proposed to you?

Chugging along

This is the third installment of a sporadic series I've come to think of in my mind as the Progress Series. I've never been much of a housekeeper (just ask any of my roommates) but I am turning a corner and making some fun changes in my home. See previous progress entries here and here, if you are so inclined.


In a fun new turn of 'Something's Wrong with Ashley' events, I started having back spasms last weekend. (I kept having visions of 'turning into my dad,' who has dealt with these nasty things for quite some time now.)

There are only so many days in a row that a girl like me can lie flat on her back, hanging out with the ice pack and watching a Top Model marathon. So when I felt good enough to move around some, I decided tackle the (*ahem*) two-foot high pile of papers to file, most of which was lounging on top of my file cabinet.

There are no before photos.

But check out the result!

Oh, wait. I pulled from the wrong folder. Here...

The plant is a succulent called Chocolate Soldier. 

Seriously. Imagine a stack 2 feet high of papers, notebooks, folders, who knows what, and some other stuff there, and then look again...

Notice the bowl. I'm about to talk about it.

That silver bowl is an antique Homan silver. My former boss friend Cathy is a direct descendent of the silversmith, and she gave me that bowl (along with a tall water pitcher and creamer) as a going-away present when we moved out here. I used to keep my spools of colored thread in it, but those have been tossed in a baggie and will find a new home somewhere else. Eventually.

The candle and pinecone probably won't live there forever. The candle was necessary to clear the air after an indoor 'incident' with the puppy this morning, and the pinecone is something I picked up today on one of our morning walks because it was so oddly shaped. I don't know where it's going to live yet.

See how the pinecone is kinda bent in the middle?

The yarn is some yarn I got for like 55% off at Tuesday Morning a few weeks ago (I have big plans for that yarn, so be on the lookout) and the little jar has shells and stone and little corals I've picked up along the way. Most of them came from the shores of North Carolina, but a few are from other beaches I've visited - including a few from our honeymoon in Hawaii (See here, here, here and especially here for more on that).

So anyway. Instead of a giant stack of guilt-inducing eyesore atop my little blue cabinet right in the middle of the living room, I've got a little collection of happy memories and things I love.

And now, I'm off to find a home for that pine cone.

Fudge FAIL

I like to try new things in my kitchen. A lot of times, I come away with moderate, if not great, success.

But not always.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: 

My latest FAIL. The S'mores Fudge Fail.

Company Girl Coffee 3.19.10

We are having a snow day. And it's wonderful.

Brian has the day off today (finally) and we've made it count.

I had some dog duty early this morning, but after that, Brian stepped up and let me sleep until 9. Did you see that? 9am!! I can't remember the last time I slept that late!! It was glorious.

We watched some of NCIS season 3 while Brian made some breakfast for us, and then... we went ice skating! DU has a rink that is open to the public for about an hour and a half weekday afternoons, and this afternoon we made our first of what will be many trips there.

It started snowing last night, and it has not stopped yet. It's been pretty quiet around here. Nice and slow.I love snow days. Have I mentioned that?

I think it's time for some hot chocolate, with real whipped cream on top. And later, some Tuscan-style potato soup. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Happy weekend to you!

Company Girl Coffee is a fun weekly link-up at Home Sanctuary. Check it out, and come on in!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Image from Homemade by Lisa.

============
MARCH 17TH
by JJ Leyden
============

March 17th, Saint Patrick's Day.
There is a gathering of family and friends.
Traditional corn beef, cabbage, and boiled potatoes.

We linger at the table and talk.
There is a catching up on news and gossip.
Drinks are shared and laughter abounds.
Old bonds are re-cemented.
There is closeness available nowhere else.

The dearly departed and their deeds are remembered.
We speak of our children and their accomplishments.
Old family stories, told time and time again,
are told once more, and relished.

A celebration of family and our Irish ethnicity.
Isn't it grand, just being part of it?

John Leyden

I'm wishing a happy St. Patrick's Day to all my friends, 

Irish or not.

How will you celebrate?

(And in case you are wondering, YES, I am very Irish. 

Sullivan on one side of the family tree, Gainer on the other.)