Digging Up The Daylilies

That was a whole lot more excitement than I wanted out of my afternoon! I was just sitting here on the sofa, reading MDC and holding my sleeping post-nursing baby. All of a sudden I heard "bzzz. bzzz" very close to my ear. There was a drowsy bee INSIDE MY SHIRT!
I put the baby down faster than I ever have. He woke up crying. Meanwhile I'm trying desperately to get out of my tee shirt and pinafore dress without squashing the bee and praying that the bee does not sting me and the baby does not roll off the couch. Phew.
I left my clothes in a heap on the floor and cuddled the baby. While going through the kitchen to change Danny's diaper I saw the cat stalking something that must be under the stove or the fridge. Ugh. I'm going to leave *that* wildlife for Drew or the cats to deal with!

I've just made my second batch of laundry soap. The last batch lasted 7 months and I made this one with the remaining ingredients -- how's that for economical? :)
Today's version was inspired by my new copy of The Naturally Clean Home (Karyn Siegel-Maier). Since I have a front-loading washing machine, hard water, and usually wash in cold water, I thought I'd better stick to the gel method commonly available on the internet. So I used the ingredients in the book and the method from the internet. Which ended up going as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 cup grated soap (I use Zote brand -- in the future I'll look for something less scented)
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup borax
• 10-15 drops essential oil
• A whole lot of water!
• 3-5 gallon container

1. Heat 6 cups of water, then dissolve the grated soap into it.
2. Once dissolved, turn off the heat and add the washing soda and borax, stirring until those are dissolved.
3. Put 4 cups of hot water into your storage container
4. Add the soap mixture to the water and mix.
5. Add another 1 gallon plus 6 cups (that's 22 cups) of cool water to the mixture. Stir to combine.
6. At this point the soap is cool enough to add 10-15 drops of the essential oil of your choice. I used lavender.
7. Let sit 24 hours to gel. Or you could pour it into old laundry bottles and then let it sit to gel.

This stuff is a little sludgy, like thick egg drop soup. I use 1/4 cup of soap per load and put vinegar into the fabric softener cup of my washing machine. It works well for us! I have seen notes that say not to use this formulation for cloth diapers since the soap (rather than detergent) can negatively impact the absorbency of the diapers. So we will just be using this for household laundry once the baby comes.

I just cleaned the tub with borax and liquid castille soap (Dr Bronner's almond). It only took a little scrubbing with the floor scrubby brush and rinsed off nicely to give me a white tub!

I've been exploring the world of homemade cleaners in an attempt to be more responsible to my budget and my immediate environment. I'm thrilled that this one worked just as well as the expensive cleaners with anonymous chemicals.

Does anyone have any other homemade cleaners they swear by?

I absolutely adore being able to feed whoever walks through my door. Yes, I am an introvert, but I like it when people drop in (in moderation). Last night I had just finished throwing together a quick rye bread and was about to move on to soup and sweet potato cake when both my house mates and my husband came home. With all four of us home (unusual during the week) we quickly decided to play Rock Band for an hour, until Hao had to leave for Badminton. I commandeered help to put the split-pea sweet potato soup together. Once the soup was simmering and the bread baking we played Rock Band.

While I was pureeing the soup and the bread was cooling, our doorbell rang! It was a friend of Jaime's who had come to play Rock Band. "We're about to eat dinner. Have you eaten?". Next thing you know, I'm serving out dinner to the hooligans plus a woman I've never met. As we started to eat the doorbell rang again -- Alan was here for Rock Band. "Want dinner?" No, he'd already eaten.

So my evening consisted of playing Rock Band and feeding people. It was awesome!

As of 7:30 pm our house is free of uninvited avian wildlife. It took D, H, and I a few minutes to corral the bird into a good spot, then D & H got on top of the chest freezer in order to reach the rafter. The bird was caught in a bath towel and released back into the yard where it flew away into the darkness.

We also made grilled pizzas for the first time tonight. They were even easier than regular oven pizza, and very good. The pizza would be improved by cooking over charcoal instead of gas, to get a smoky flavor and hotter temperature. But all in all, an excellent first effort.

This last weekend it snowed from Friday night until Monday noon. We got 15 inches of snow and 1 inch of water mixed into that. Now, here in the Upper Midwest we're good at clearing snow. I was not snowed in at all this weekend. But with temperatures hovering around freezing, the snow was really wet and really heavy. How heavy? The Wisconsin State Journal reports 22 pounds per snow shovel!