James is Cute and Laundry Soap

Then end of our vacation has been rather anticlimactic, but still very nice.

This was from last night.  The girls are always dressing up that boy.

Though sometimes he does it to himself.

He pulled Natalie’s swim shorts off the drying rack today and wore them as a hat.

I’ve been pretty domestic today, thank goodness!  I have just not felt like baking or really doing anything more than the basics in the kitchen lately.  I’m sure the lack of desire to bake has something to do with it being August in Houston.  :)  But I had such an itch I had to bake a few things today, regardless of the heat.

Sadly, I have no pictures to prove it.  :)  I simply hate the light in my kitchen, and it’s too much work to haul stuff to a whole other room while I’m trying to wrangle kids and multitask in the the kitchen.  SO, that’s why no pictures.  :)

I made two loaves of banana bread, a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, and a double batch of pancakes (then we ate some for dinner).  Everything is bagged and in the freezer for quick breakfasts and snacks.  Yay!!!

I also mixed up a batch of laundry soap.  I’m going to post my current “recipe” here since I keep looking it up every time I make a batch.

I yanked this picture off my blog from a couple of years ago because I’m just too tired from all this domesticity to go into the pantry and take another one.

Wow my DSLR takes such better pictures.  :)

Anyway – the ingredients:

• 1 bar of Fels Naptha soap
• 1 cup of Super Washing Soda
• 1 cup of Borax

The various recipes out there in cyberspace call for different ratios, but I’m pretty sure this is what I did last time.  Checking the blog though, I don’t think it’s what I did the time or two before.  I think the amounts of soda and borax were double what I used this time.  I think I’ll just see how I like my laundry and adjust if needed.  :)

Step 1 – Buy extra Fels Naptha and let it sit {wherever you keep cleaning products and such} until the next time to need it.  I have found it grates sooooo much easier and you can really get a powder from it if it isn’t fresh from the store.

Step 2 – Have your husband or some other willing strong person (it could even be you) grate the Fels Naptha on the fine side of the grater.

That is sadly the last picture due to all the multitasking and not wanting to leave the kitchen to take a decent picture and not wanting to settle for less than decent.  So the rest will just be words.

Step 3 – Pulse the grated soap in the food processor until it’s a powder.  {Probably the whole thing could be done in the food processor, but this seems to work the best for us; you could also skip the processing if you don’t have one.}

Step 4 – Mix the soap powder with the borax and washing soda in the container of your choice.

Step 5 – Do laundry!  Add 1T to regular, even full loads.  You can add a little more to very soiled loads or a little less to small loads.  I put the detergent in when I’m filling the washer so it has a chance to dissolve a bit before I add the clothes.  If I’m washing in cold water, I will sometimes close the lid and let the water agitate for a minute to help that process along.

Notes:

• I don’t use this detergent on kitchen towels, unless I’m out of anything else, simply because it will build up over time, and I wash those a lot.  I also don’t use this on diapers for the same reason. But it’s fabulous on regular clothes. 
• I wash the food processor parts and the cheese grater very very very well after I use them to make detergent.  Someday I will have dedicated laundry tools, but for now this makes me feel okay.

And now I’m off to eat cookies and lay on the couch.  I’m so thankful I have one more weekend before we get back to reality!