Wow, it's been a while

Hi Folks!

I actually haven't forgot about the blog.  We said we were going to take a break, put the electronics away and focus on having a family.  Which.. we have been doing for the last two years.  This last November we experienced a devastating loss, we lost twins.

We gave it a few more months, but slowly my health is declining, so we have decided to take some time off, how long?  We haven't actually decided.  We felt like we had contacted close friends and family.. so it was okay to put this out there in a public forum.

However, I've been taking pictures of food.  I have some amazing recipes to share and Cory is having gastric bypass done in the next few months, so I will have the joy of sharing our transition through that time. 

I look forward to sharing some of our culinary joy.. and... I know we "said" we were going to work on remodeling last year, but!  We actually bought the supplies this year.  With a little help from Pinterest I feel that I have a style and flow I would like the house to have, and I can't wait to start and share my ideas with you.  So the next few months should be busy.  Right now, we are under a ton of snow, so... I can say nothing exciting is going to happen outside, so.. we will get some fun things underway in the kitchen to start :) I can't wait honestly.

So, I'm going to wrap up this post, so I can look at preparing the next month.. I'm thinking orange chicken and fried rice... Philly beef crescent roll ups.. and dutch oven roast- the ultimate comfort food w/green bean casserole :) and I'm going to tackle my first home improvement project- I'm going to paint a laminate book shelf to see if it's the color we want for the kitchen cabinets.  Suspense I know!

Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Homemade Laundry Soap

 I decided to try saving even more money.. I watched for random items to go on sale.  Deciding to try my own soap.  Some mixes you find online suggest using different bars of soap.  I can honestly say, it doesn't matter.  I like Castile soap because it has a coconut smell, and is all natural.

 

I grated everything.  I got the castile soap on sale, so, I did many bars that day.  So I only had to clean the grater once.

I created 4 bags.  After making this recipe I found a site that shows how to make super washing soda from baking soda.  I'll try that soon & post the results.  This is an idea I took from Pinterest.  The original can be found here.

I take all the boxes, mix them together with 1 bag of my castile soap, I put them in a 3 gallon bucket & bagged them for use in the laundry room.  I've yet to get a container.  We stopped using softner, I've replaced it with vinegar, which, helps the smell of our top loading washer and use softner just for homemade dryer sheets.  But of course, that's another post :)

Using 2 T of this mix in your wash replaces the cups of the store made kind you buy.  I can honestly say I don't miss tide, but I definitely love the money that's in our pocket!

Homemade Laundry Soap:

1 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz)

1 4 lb box Baking Soda (1.81 kg)

1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz)

3 bars of Castile soap- grated

Mix all ingredients, use 2 T for a large load in cold, warm or hot water.

Green Cleaning

So a while back I said I was going to try some fun ideas from Pinterest. Fun = Cleaning? No.. not really... but it has to be done, and I prefer to do it as painlessly as possible.

Most of you know me personally, and know that I get horrific migraines from fumes of anything. So.. I've been trying to use baking soda and other ideas to clean, green and fume free.

I'm embarrassed to show you my tub.. however... here it is. Gross right?


Well.. I mixed:

1 C baking soda
1 T dish soap
1/4 Water

Made a paste and my scrub brush and I went to work.

5 minutes later......

I was pretty amazed. Thank you very much Martha Stewart. Really. :)

I also made a few of my pans look brand new by making a paste of baking soda & peroxide. It took off years of cooked on oven grease, which is disgusting, but.. it happens.

My two pinterest for this weekend were a list of weekly chores, to spend 15 minutes a day keeping the house clean and smore's cookie bars. I'll share how this goes on Saturday. I need all week to do the chores and see how that works, but.. the smore's bars, I wish I had some left, they went by quick!

See you tomorrow with the recipe for cheeseburger meatloaf!

-Kelly