April 26, 2012

Rack Room Shoes Contest & Home Made Laundry Detergent!

The boys came home yesterday very excited about their school entering a contest. This morning I made sure I followed up on the contest and it looks neat. Rack Room Shoes is sponsoring a “Beautifying Grant” for the winning school in the amount of $50K. So if you happen to stumble on this blog and have just a moment to vote, please do so. http://www.rackroomshoes.com/lp-contest/ Click on schools in Texas, Sam Rayburn Elem.

Aside from this contest, I noticed this morning that pregnancy hormones are no joke. (haha) I woke up in a good mood this morning. I think I got plenty of sleep and I even let the boys sleep in a few minutes later than usual due to my sleep hehehe. Well all to realize that I’ve been slacking as a mom… eeesh! I completely forgot to have Ty do his homework yesterday… but it gets better… he didn’t do the assignment from the day before either! Yikes! What am I doing in the evenings? Why didn’t I press him on the homework the night before? I need to get this pregnancy brain back to work again. So needless to say, I think I was more upset with myself than anything else for slipping, but I couldn’t help getting after the munchkin for not working on the homework himself… I think it’s fair to say that we keep a pretty tight routine in the after school hours for him to know that he needs to get cracking on that homework, but I suppose he is a normal 7 yr old who tries to get away with as much as he can! haha… Well, after a nice quiet drive to school and back, I think I’m over my little morning fit and I’m ready to continue my day in a better mood.

Today is Thursday! Laundry day here at home (oh joy!) Since I’ll be working on washing and folding today, I thought I would share a recipe for home made laundry soap with you. I can’t take credit for this recipe at all… all you have to do is Google the subject and you’ll get a ton of different sites featuring the same recipe with slight modifications. I think I modified mine just a tad too, but here’s the recipe I like the most.

1 bar of shaved bar soap (Ivory, Fels-Naptha, Zote, or Dr. Bronner’s )
1 cup of borax
1 cup of washing soda (Arm & Hammer is what I use)
1/2 cup of oxygen cleaner (Oxy-Clean or any generic brand)

Instructions: Shave your preferred bar of soap, add remaining ingredients, mix about 5 minutes (or just a minute if you’re using a food processor for speed.)

That’s it! It’s quite simple (if you don’t count the shaving of the soap- that was a bit of a work out for my weak arms. -.-)

I use about 1-2 tbs per load and I’ve had some pretty good results. My laundry is clean. There have been no skin reactions to any of the ingredients for any of our family members. It’s cheap and I don’t have to feel guilty by using all the harsh chemicals normally found in other laundry detergents.

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to chemicals and detergent cleaners. Read up on what works for your family and what doesn’t. Some people prefer not to use Borax due to various reasons. Educate yourself, decide what works for your family and modify your recipe as you see fit. Our skin absorbs so much of what we expose it to and only you can decide what works and what doesn’t. I find that this recipe is simple, cheap, and green! If I stumble upon a better one, I’ll be sure to post that one too! For now, if you decide to try it, let me know how it works for you!

-Norm