Message for Lewis Kemper's Funeral

You can find the message I shared at my grandfather's funeral here:

http://tangled-angles.blogspot.com/

I'm doing laundry...soap!

A while back (read several months ago and I am not sure how long it's been:) we made our first batch of laundry soap following the Duggar recipe for liquid laundry soap. It worked really well, and was not too complicated, so now that we are about to run out I decided to make some more.

I don't know about you, but I like to use a recipe the first time I make something and then experiment to see how I could play with ingredients adding more of one or decreasing another. I do this in cooking and decided to try it with this batch of laundry soap...I will let you know how it goes, but here are the recipes I have used.

First Batch:
1 bar Fell's Naptha Soap
1/2 cup Borax
1 cup Super Washing Soda

Second Batch:
2 bars Ivory Soap
1 cup Borax
1 cup Super Washing Soda

I was not as happy with the Ivory Soap. It didn't seem to get my whites very clean. We didn't have that issue with the Fells Naphtha.

**Since Then:

1 bar Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap

1 cup Borax

1 cup Super Washing Soda

We have been pretty happy with the effectiveness of this recipe. As this is a natural soap, I would recommend using vinegar in the fabric softener compartment (about 1/2 cup). It keeps residue from building up on cotton fabrics. I don't do this every laundry day, about once a month is enough.

(We've also used the liquid Dr Bronner's--about 2 cups, along with the Borax and Super Washing Soda yielding 3 gallons of soap instead of 5 gal.)

Also, enjoy the step-by-step instructional pics!
This takes maybe 20-30 minutes and saves you $BIG$!



Okay, start with your favorite mild soap.
Often recommended are Fell's Naphtha Soap, which I used in the first batch; and Ivory Soap which I used here.


1 5.5oz Fell's Naptha Soap Bar
or 2 3oz Ivory Soap Bars

Finely grate the soap.






In a sauce pan, add at least 4 cups of hot water and stir over medium heat until soap is completely dissolved.










Grab a clean 5 gallon bucket with a lid.
Fill it half full with hot tap water.











Add some Super Washing Soda and Borax.
The first batch I made had 1/2 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Super Washing Soda.

This batch I used 1 cup of each Borax and Super Washing Soda.

Stir into hot water in bucket until completely dissolved.






Pour dissolved hot soap into the bucket and stir well. Fill your 5 gallon bucket to within a couple of inches from the top with more hot water, stirring and stirring all the while.


Now, pop the lid on and let sit over night.

When you open in the morning, it is a blob of gel! Fill empty and clean laundry jugs half full of gelled soap and half warm water.

Shake well every time you use the soap as it will gel up in the bottles. Use 2/3 cup in each load, it is low sudsing and perfect for HE machines.

These recipes make 10 gallons of laundry soap!!!

It can easily cost $40 or more to buy 10 gallons of laundry soap, this recipe cost me:
***$ 1.00 for 3 bars of Ivory Soap (only used 2 bars)
$ 4.00 for a box of Super Washing Soda (approx. 8 cups in the box)
$ 4.00 for a box of Borax (approx. 6 cups in the box)
Totaling $9.00 initial cost.
In reality only $1.82 for ingredients used in 10 gallons of soap!!
(That is less than $.01 per load)

The Borax and Super Washing Soda will make several batches of laundry soap.
The 5 gallon buckets can either be purchased or you can ask around at local businesses/restaurants if they have any they need to get rid of.

For powdered detergent, grate the soap, add the Super Washing Soda and Borax; stir until thoroughly mixed or pulse in a food processor. Use 2 TBSP per load. I have never tried it, so I can't vouch for it's qualities.

***The various soap bars you start with will differ in price. The Fells Naphtha runs about $2 a bar here. The Dr. Bronner's is the most expensive at about $4 a bar. Still much less expensive than one regular container of laundry detergent!

Supper Adventures!

No, I did not mean super adventures, it really is supper adventures!

We had such a fun time tonight at supper. Instead of eating at home, which we usually do, we went to Village Inn and had a fun supper. Being a mom, I don't usually encourage eating sweets for supper, but for one night we threw the rule book out the window.

Kathrina and Arabella both had smiley face pancakes and loads of fun with their kids menus. Rich had the Denver omelet, and I had a piece of white chocolate cherry cream pie and coffee...Ok, so I implied that the sweets were for the kids but really they were for me :)

The fun (and funny) parts of the evening were found in moments where the girls let down their hair and shone forth their true selves...not something we always encourage in public--all the moms out there know what I mean!

Kathrina's funny moment came as she was eating her pancake after systematically finishing off the blueberry eyes, bacon smile, and scrambled egg hair of her smiley face. As she smeared butter on the pancakes, she turned and with all the sincerity of a six-year-old asked, "What are pancakes made of?"
Being the mom and baker in our house, I answered, "Lots of things, flour, eggs, milk..."
To which she replied, "No, mom, I mean what ANIMAL are they made from."
Apparently we have been talking a little too much lately about the animal origins of some of her food.

For Arabella, moments are like all things in her life, nothing is ever small! Everything is attacked with the zeal only a three-year-old can produce. We had reminded her several times that she needed to use a little voice while we were eating so as not to disturb those around us--let's face it, people think kids are cute, but loud ones are obnoxious. So, when she screamed "Oow!" for no apparent reason as she was eating her pancake, we once more started to tell her she needed to keep it down.
As she stabbed a piece of pancake with her fork, our eyes were opened to the greater situation with her added statement of "Ow, that hurts me!" Onto the fork went the pancake, screaming for its life, and into her mouth with a big grin.
Rich and I laughed as we understood what was happening, which only further encouraged Bella. She promptly turned to her daddy and said, "I'm a pancake, eat me! I'm yummy!" We all got a big laugh then as she laid back in the booth and presented herself for consumption.

It was fun, and I couldn't let this night pass without giving tonight's supper adventures their proper due. It may seem like a little thing, but those little things all add up to big important feelings in little girls who learned again tonight that they are great people, that family life is fun and that sometimes love is best expressed in laughter.