Well, today has been a rather productive day for me.  It's always nice when one of those comes along, however rare it may be.

Today, I accomplished visible things, which is muchmore encouraging than all those invisible mother tasks. 

I posted the three entries I had been waiting to write on this blog.  (Plus this one now of course.)

I bottled a batch of Ginger Beer and started another batch.

I made a gallon of Yogurt (okay that was easy.)

I cooked and cleaned as per usual.

I learned how to down load my pictures to my camera and upload them to the internet for friends to view.  Now I just have to organize them into an album and put in the email addresses!!!

And last but not least, I made my first batch of Homemade Laudry Soap!  I have been "itching" to do this for a while.  It took me over a week to gather the 3 necessary ingredients, and then we were away for a week and a half.  Now we are back and unpacked and today was the day.  So, I invited the little girls in who hang out on our back patio.  they were all excited to help.  Made it more chaotic but it was fun.

Here's the process:

1 bar of grated Ivory Soap

1/2 cup Borax

1/2 cup Washing Soda (not Baking Soda)

2 gallons of water

optional essential oil.

Put the grated soap and 6 cups of water into a pan and cook over medium heat until the soap has disolved.  Then add the Borax and WAshing Soda and stir until they have disolved.  Next put 4 cups of hot water into your large bucket.  I used an old Costco Laundry Soap Bucket!  Stir and stir.  Next add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water to the bucket and stir stir stir.  At this point you can add the essential oil if you wish.  I added lavender and tea tree oil.  Then it must sit overnight and it will become a nice light gel.

I will post my satisfaction results in  a couple of weeks once we have had a chance to use it. 

cost wise it is fabulous.  All the basic ingredients for about 10 batches cost $5.00 - $7.00 and each batch will wash about 64 loads of laundry.  That's about 640 loads of laundry for around $7.00 not counting the essential oil.  I have been paying 5-6 dollars for one box of detergent that will wash about 40 loads of laundry! 

So, if this turns out to work well, and it doesn't cause any skin irritations...guess what?  I'll be sold on homemade laundry detergent!

I am up really late trying to determine if my picture upload is really going to work.  I accidentally aborted the upload half way through last time grrrrr.... Now I am back to half way through again.  

Good Night