Monday, May 10, 2010

Laundry detergent verdict

laundry detergent

Remember my bucket of fun from Saturday?  Turns out, I didn’t have any laundry to try it on yesterday.  So it got it’s trial run on my bedding today. 

I opened the bucket to be greeted by a gelatinous goop.  I stirred it up with a paint stick (which broke!), put half a cup in my washer and dumped in my sheets.

I need to note that I am using a new washer and I found streaks on something last week (it was a pair of light tan pants I had sprayed with Spray and Wash – so I assumed it was the Spray and Wash).

Monkey and Little Man’s sheets all turned out fine today.

Mine, however, had streaks on the flat sheet:

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It’s really difficult to see, so I tweaked the image so you could see what streaks I’m talking about:

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The green sections are the normal colored sections of the sheet.  The blue is where it looks like my sheets got bleach splashed on them.  Unfortunately, I think it may be the washer and not the detergent that did this (because of my pants from last week).

They smell really good and I can’t wait to climb into my fresh bed tonight. 

And I’m going to bite the bullet and try it on a load of darks this afternoon.  

Wish me luck.  Hopefully I have only good things to report.

Sew Fun Sunday

For Mother’s Day, my sweet T told me I could do whatever I wanted to do – all day long! 

I decided to spend a little time with my sewing machine in the morning (and force fed family time for the rest of the day.  haha).

Thanks to the lack of interruptions, I was able to put together a few new items to list on Etsy!

Who says such a utilitarian item as burp clothes has to be boring?

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Don’t you love the lilacs in the background?  T usually waits until they are open to pick me some.  He got impatient this year.

I’ve also got a second diaper kit nearly finished – it still needs a diaper caddy (they are great for keeping your diapering gear organized and easy to grab from the vast array of stuff that usually winds up in your diaper bag).  Included will be a sling (sized medium), a burp cloth, a changing pad and the yet to be sewn caddy.

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I also got to make a special treat for Monkey.  We went to JoAnn’s Fabrics on Friday and she found a lady bug button she just had to have.  While trying to figure out what to do with said button (so Little Man wouldn’t find it and choke on it with it lying around), I spotted an adorable lady bug print fabric.  Monkey now has an apron (she’s a moving target – I had trouble getting a picture.)  It is technically reversible because I also lined it with a deep green for extra thickness/clothing protection.

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I hope all of the moms out there enjoyed their Mother’s Day and got pampered a little. 

Enjoy your sewing machines!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I’m very late to the game with this one.

My interest was first grabbed when I saw Country Girl had made her own dry detergent.  Being that I use liquid detergent and had  a bunch bought ahead when I’d found a great sale, I put it on my list of “Things I’d like to do – but not in a great rush to do it” (just so you know – that particular list is really really long.  haha).

Then a couple of months ago, my friend Kellie made her own liquid detergent.  I realized that my stash was finally dwindling and decided to put it on my “Things I’d like to do – sooner rather than later” list (this list is a little more reasonable in length).

Then Nicole took inspiration from Kellie and made some for Too Cute Tuesday.

Then a completely different set of friends started it.  Christine made some (I can’t, for the life of me, find her blog link).  Then Kelli made some last week.

I decided to use the original instructions Kelli was going to use from The Simple Dollar.

It was really easy to make – quite quick, as well.  It took me 20 minutes to gather all of my supplies and mix up the goop.

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This is what I now have sitting next to my washer, awaiting the 24 hour “sitting” period before I can see what I came up with.  You can see some small chunks of the bar of Ivory that just did not want to melt.  Most of it was an Ivory dust because the bar is a little old, so other than those little chunks, it melted really quickly.

While I realize tomorrow is Mother’s Day and I’m supposed to spend the day being pampered, I insist on doing laundry so I can find out how well our detergent works (hardy har on being pampered – really.  haha).

Stay tuned for the results!

Monday, May 3, 2010

One of THOSE days

You know what days I’m talking about.  The kind that just go from bad to worse and you can’t wait to get back into bed.

I’m having one today.  And you know, I’m ever the optimist but some days can just kiss my big butt.

I got maybe a combined total of 3 hours of sleep last night.  My kids and husband just didn’t want me to sleep, I guess.  Monkey got me up twice and Little Man three times.  T, well, he spent the night tossing and turning and keeping me awake, too. 

This leads to a tired and cranky Jodi, which leads to impatience.  The kids are able to sense this, of course.  Rather than be their normal darling selves, they’ve been little monsters today.

I spilled half of my large  mug of much needed coffee all over my kitchen table.

Then I had to go to town for T recycling to the recycle center and to pick up chicken food (because he didn't tell me to pick up chicken feed last week and we were 100% out as of yesterday). So, I decided I'd do groceries instead of just running to the smaller grocery store for milk.

I get 10 minutes from my house and realize A) I forgot to have Monkey pee before leaving (we’ve only just started venturing away from home without diapers, though she’s been out of diapers for months). B) I forgot my wallet.  So I had to turn around.

I quickly grabbed my wallet, put Monkey on the potty and off we went again. Little Man is still in the back seat on screech at this point, but fell asleep on the ride to town. We went to the recycle center and then drove to the other end of town to buy chicken food.  can I just say that I love that Blue Seal has a drive thru and I’ll probably never go buy chicken food at the new Tractor Supply store for that very reason.  I can stay right in the car with the kids and the employee at Blue Seal loads that 50 pound bag of chicken feed right into my trunk for me. 

So, I'm waiting in line and Monkey says "Mommy.  [Monkey] peepeed in carseat." GAH.   That’s what I get for not bringing a change of clothes for her – but she still would have had to get in and out of a wet seat, so forget the grocery store.

Off we go back home where, on the way, I did something I NEVER do and stopped at the little convenience store 2 miles from my house and [bad mommy moment] left my kids locked in the car [/end bad mommy moment] to pay $5 for a gallon of milk because we had zilch at home and Monkey is a huge milk drinker.

To top it off, I’ve had this hanging over my head since Friday:

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What’s this, you ask?  This would be what my daughters torso looked like yesterday morning – where I removed a tick from her little body on Friday.  The pediatrician on call who took my panicked phone call Friday night told me since it had only been on her for a few hours, I wouldn’t need to worry about it giving her anything – and to remove as much of it as I could.  Well, there’s still something there.  And the red?  I think it’s from us playing with it so  much trying to get that last little piece out (she may have gotten pinched by the tweezers – I don’t know – it was one of those parenting moments that are not pleasurable, ok?  You’ve got this parasite on your toddler and she’s screaming bloody murder while you “attack” her with tweezers?  Not fun.). [Note – it was fairly large – therefore, NOT a deer tick.  Eases my mind, but not much – at least there’s no worry of Lyme Disease.]

So.. now I'm home. The kids are acting better.  Monkey's car seat cover is in the washer. And I did something nice for T to try to turn my sour mood around. I vacuumed out the car while her seat is out because it was full of crushed gold fish crackers and he told me yesterday it's bothering him (he doesn't like a dirty car and it's been pretty bad). So I parked the kids in front of Sesame Street [don't judge - I'm having a bad day ] and quickly vacuumed it out for him.

And now I'm having Easter chocolates hoping to snap out of it.  Quickly. 

Don’t you just love THOSE days?

(I feel a little better now that I’ve hashed it all out here for you to see, though.  HA!)

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Sew Fun Sunday!

I haven’t been able to spend nearly as much time with my sewing machine as I would like in the past month or so.  This week, that changed.

A friend is having a baby and today was her surprise baby shower.  I made a diaper kit for her.

I started with the diaper caddy:

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In it, I put a tube of Butt Paste (the best diaper rash cream we’ve ever come across) and a personalized travel sized wipes container:

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I also included a matching changing pad:

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A coordinated burp cloth:

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And a sling (which I forgot to take a picture of.  Then I tied them all up with a nice little bow:

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Watch my Etsy site for similar sets coming soon.

And have fun with your sewing machines!  I know I sure missed mine.

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