Laundry Detergent

Finally got around to buying the right things at the store to make some homemade laundry detergent.  I looked up a couple recipes all of what were just slight variations of the same thing.  I did opt for the powder versus the liquid.  It seemed easier to make and store.  It would be interesting to see if there is a performance difference I suppose.


This is the recipe I ended up using.  Basically 2 parts Baking Soda, 2 parts Bar Soap (flaked), 1 part Washing Soda, and 1 part Borax with the borax optional.


I realized I only took one rather stupid picture of the soap I grated.  I used Kirk's Castille bar soap and a hand grater on the smaller notches.  I also added some grapefruit essential oil.


I'll have to follow up how this turns out.

Menu Please

So I just have it on paper and I'm too tired to transfer it on the computer or anything.  I made a menu plan for the week.  I desperately need to go to the grocery store but I struggle with coming home with anything to prepare for a meal.  It end up being just a little of this and a little of that.  Some things I'm looking forward to though is a sweet potato shepherds pie and garlic turkey burgers.  I also hope to add some more greens to my diet via kale chips, omelets, and smoothies. 

Boring blog post I know but hopefully I'll follow up with at least a couple of the new menu items next week.  And I have high hopes of getting a lot done for my daughters new bedroom so hopefully I'll have some material then too.  It's been another tiring day, baby growth spurt maybe?  : )

Cloud Dough

Made some cloud dough today.  It's just flour and oil in a 8:1 ratio.  I only did half because I didn't have enough oil.  I also didn't have baby oil which is what most recipes call for so I just used vegetable oil, just fine with me since I didn't want to eat that stuff.  I added some lavender essential oil since that's about all I have that smells really good to me and decided to throw in some nutmeg because back when I made the hot/cold rice sock I read somewhere that nutmeg and lavender smell nice together.  I honestly couldn't smell it though.

The way I did this was quite messy.  I just set her on the kitchen floor with a bowl some little cups and a cookie sheet.  She ended up spilling it everywhere and was sitting in it.  Then she thought it was really funny to come up and put hand prints on my black pants.  So the planning aspect wasn't the greatest.  This is definitely something to put in a shallow tub on a table with a large mat underneath. 

She made up for the pant marks though she said," Thank you for making this Mommy, I love when yo make me things and read books to me and play with me."

Add caption

I think she like being a flour monster just as much as playing in it

Such a poser

Cookies and Friends

Woot, woot!  3 days of posting in a row.  I've defeated my blogging failure. 

I didn't really 'make' anything very exciting today.  After it was done I realized I am really missing my friend.  It's kind of funny really because I called her this morning but just left a message and missed her return call.  When I made lunch I realized I still had the cookie log that she made me for Christmas so I sliced it up and they are so good and quick.  Now I need to get the recipe, I don't even know for sure what they are called Pecan something I think.  Then for dinner I needed something quick and easy to take a long to rehearsal and once for lunch she served shredded chicken and avocado mixed into like a dip with tortilla chips, so that's what I made.

Overall I had a productive day calling people, getting organized and washing lots of laundry since I had a friend bring over some leftover garage sale clothes.  That has been a life saver so far I desperately needed some more clothes.

New Bedroom!

New to me anyway.  We painted and ripped up carpet and voila, huge transformation and I love it.  Now I just have to get some super neat photography on the wall.  I'm not sure what to technically count this as, I made the carpet disappear or I made a new bedroom, whatever doesn't really matter it's awesome and I'm so happy.

It sure was a lot of work though.  I have a blister on my hand from yanking the staples out of the floor.  Can't complain too much for a beautiful hardwood floor as easy as ripping up the carpet.




Carpet closeup



Before





He borders the celing and writes cut love notes on the wall.  : )



Look at that FLOOR! 







Ta-Da

And if you are wondering why it looks like we have a crib next to our bed it's because we cosleep.  Right now our 3 year old bounces back and forth between us and the crib but we plan to put the newborn in the crib in June and our next big project is our girls bedroom.  Found out she was scared of the plant golden wallpaper, can't blame her.  : )  Anyway the crib idea came from activist Jennifer Coias and you can read all about it at the drmomma peaceful parenting blog here.

If that sparks interest and you want more information on it please check out James McKenna and colleagues research through the University of Notre Dame here.

As far as the bedrrom goes we realized we didn't put on the bedskirt and we have some decorating to do as well as hemming the curtains but so glad we got this far.

Whew!

I've really done it this time.  It's Saturday and I haven't made a blog post since Tuesday.  Now I've been wishy washy about this for a while now and keep thinking about throwing in the towel, but why?  I only have 2 followers (although I love you guys!), and one comment...from my husband.  So why not push through and see what happens.  Plus, I've been really busy improving my life and daily living.  I've also 'made' plenty just so exhausted at the end of the day I haven't wanted to blog.  Writing isn't my strong suit anyway.

So let's start with Wednesday since that's where I left off.  I went to the museum again and made a butterfly face on my daughter.  I also 'made' myself clean, clean, clean.  And we had our second rehearsal for the play we are in where I made blocking notes.  I'm happy to be a part of this show as it's a fundraiser for our hometown community theatre, and it's a mystery dinner show!  How fun!

Thursday was a tired day, so I splurged and made half caff coffee.

Friday I made several phone calls/appointments with the midwife, CPA (for taxes of which reimbursement will go directly to the former), and to go get my hair cut.  I made 3 meals...like not from boxes or bags, breakfast lunch and dinner.  And since I made my Lenten sacrifice of doing dishes and laundry that made for a lot of dishes I also did all day and got completely caught on laundry, even the bedding.  I vacuumed the entire house which doesn't have anything to do with making anything but it was tiring none the less and made me feel very pregnant.

Saturday (today finally) I made some walls PURPLE!  I'm so very excited to have finally made some great progress on getting our and thus my daughters room beautified.  I don't have 'before and after' photos yet because I want to wait until it's finished.  The paint is a nice deep gray/purple which I'm hoping will look awesome with our purple/gray/brown bedspread.  Eeeek!  Alas, even though it's extremely exciting it's even more tiring.  My back is mad at me so off to bed we go. 

*fingers crossed I'll post again tomorrow*

Shame

I missed another post.  I think the honeymoon stage is over and I'm no longer SUPER excited to make something.  It's becoming more of a chore or hassle.  Which is made worse by the fact that I'm overwhelmed with 'stuff' and trying to weed it all out yet need more stuff for projects.  And we are poor, because despite everything we are still one of those dumb Americans living beyond their means.  Not that our means our very high on a one salary household.  I feel some guilt about that often, yet I can't help but want to raise my own babies.

It makes me think of child rearing for some reason or more so that infamous word of 'discipline'.  I remember chatting with a coworker one time, who was saying shame is good and that kids neeed it and use it constructively.  I was really put off of at first, but I sort of see where she was coming from.  Basically cause and effect. If we feel bad about something we will change our behavior.  Except I'm the type of person that will shame myself, too much and the constant negative feelings within myself, God forbid somebody add to that, is so intense it puts me in a state of depresive stasis.  Who knows maybe that's where I am now sort of.  If I can't do something perfectly how I envision I get really upset and usually quit.  So in a way this project if nothing else will hopefully push through whatever rut I happen to be in at the time and show me that even though life isn't perfect, it's still a great life, filled with great people. 
I think the same applies to children.  If they find their own shame in their actions then fine we as parents can help them work through that feeling and find a solution, not just make them feel worse.

On to the whole point of the post I suppose.  I made a decision to give up sloppiness today.  Maybe that's gross and sad that I need to do this, but I'm going to try really hard to not have any laundry or dishes that need doing by the end of the night.  We are somehow going to try to apply it to the whole house but keeping up on laundry and dishes is our main goal.  I'm not sure if 'making' a decision counts but I'm going with it, afterall I'm quite the indecisive person so any decision is a project.

My goal for tomorrow is to make a craft station as it was just floating around until I got tired of it and just put it away, thus no crafts.

Shakes and Mistakes ; )

I missed a post.  And for once in my life I accepted that even if I miss a deadline I should still push forward with no regrets.  I also didn't strain myself trying to do something when I was just too tired.  So now this project will go on for 366 days pending I don't miss another day.. 

I've been very busy over the weekend with family so today I just made a smoothie for my daughter to have with lunch.  It consisted of cherries, raspberries, and some of the stewed prunes.  Vanilla yogurt and just a touch of maraschino cherry juice for some added sweetness.  It was VERY good, my best one yet.  My daughter ate the whole thing and was quite the ham when I wanted pictures.

Bath Paint and Tiger Faces

I cheated this time.  I technically made this last night.  Well, the bath paint part.  I mixed some shaving cream with some food coloring as bath paint.  My daughter liked it a lot.  The coolest part of the whole thing was the silicon muffin pan I used that FLOATED!.  I thought that was super cool.  I did feel a little guilty as I know food coloring is all that good for you and I had just read somewhere about something bad in shaving cream, I think maybe lead?  Anyway I guess you have to pick your battles.

I'm not cheating entirely I technically made a tiger face today.  And not just any tiger face, the cutest pink and purple tiger evah!  : ) We went to the local kids museum and had a fun day!

Made some oatmeal today...for lunch.  It sounded really good so I made it.  I was actually trying to find a more lunchy type recipe maybe involving chicken.  I did run across a recipe to use as a breading for chicken that sounded good but too much of a hassle for right now.  Plus the only chicken I have is either cooked or frozen, not raw. 

So I just decided to make oatmeal.  I used quick oats which is nice because well, their quick.  I prefer steel cut oats but we are out (I really need to go to the store).  I used the stewed prunes from yesterday along with some cherries and mango, blended them up and threw that on top of the oatmeal and yogurt, added a touch of honey and some sliced almonds.  Yummy.

fruit blend

Ready to eat

My daughter wanted to take a picture of hers.

Prunes

Long day and in a hurry.  Making some stewed prunes and thus prune juice.  I have a little girl that needs some help.  : )  Sorry for the crappy picture but like I said I'm in a hurry.

Happy Valentine's Day!  My husband did great this year and not only got me some roses and treat but my daughter a pink rose and treats as well.  She was so very excited, it was great. 

So there I was left with delicious chocolate and roses and I had nothing to give.  Darn him he does this all the time (says we aren't getting anything).  So last minute we decided  to make Daddy some Valentine's.  I am seriously disappointed in myself but it was fun anyways.  Now were off to bed early.  I'm SO sleepy.

Teeny Weeny Sock Monster



The feet.  If I do this again I might try to find a way to separate them a little more.




I was smart enough to only cut one piece at a time, then braid and cut again otherwise I think it would have been messy.




Totally cheesy and ridiculous (I think my niece would have done a nicer job) on the otherhand it took me in total less than 30 minutes.




And she really loves it.  She kept talking to it tonight...saying it's okay baby. 

 I made a monster doll thing tonight.  I was excited to make this for quite some time, but I'm a little disappointed I wasn't more patient and did the feet and face a little nicer.  I just used fabric paint and was really impressed with my eyes and then completely botched the whole face with the silly mouth.  My daughter loves it though and I got to let her help in painting the body decorations.  This was very easy and would be a great project for a child, well an older child at least 6 probably for them to really enjoy it.  I actually used a puppy tutorial but when all I could find was my toe socks I decided to do a monster.  Plus, I already had experience with monsters, exceptionally enjoying the freedom of monster creativity so I went with it.

Snow Song...

Finally got some snow.  We went outside to play today.  I had this grand idea to attempt to make a snow horse (instead of snowman).  My daughter is a horse fanatic.  Well I got about 2 1/2 legs in and decided it wasn't happening...so then I just picked up a chunk of snow and tried to sculpt a small horse.  That didn't work either but you could kind of tell it was a four legged animal silouette thing, ya know sorta like looking at the clouds.  I even tried to make a snow penguin which I think would be even easier than a man actually, but I gave up rather quickly.

My husband made a slide pile of snow.  It was fun though.  My daughter made two snow angels and I took quite a few pictures and a video of her, "I'm cold song". 

No snow day is complete without a giant hot cocoa smile!

Cleaning Power

 Made some cleaning POWER today!  : )  I've made this for a few years now but I changed things up a bit today.  We had some lemons that we used for water so I cut the rind off in bits and added it for extra freshness.  I usually just do a couple drops of essential oil usually grapefruit, lavender, or cinnamon.  Then I go around and use this stuff for EVERYTHING.  I spray the mattress with the lavendar, and curtains/carpet.  I use cinnamon on some things especially during the holidays.  The grapefruit is a nice fresh scent to use in the kitchen and bathroom...sink, toilet, counters.  I even put a little (a drop) of dishsoap in it everyonce in a while if I need some extra power.  Oh, this solution also works fantastic on windows.  And the solution is.....
Water, Vinegar...scent.   That's it.  I use more or less vinegar depending on the level of soil.

I'm excited to see how this turns out.  I've used a cinnamon stick before too versus oil and actually prefer that, once you plunk it in you can use it again and again, just fill the bottle back up.  I'm curious if this lemon will leave any sort of residue from the sugars/oils?  I just might have to clean the windows tomorrow!

So not sure if taking a mental vacation last night helped or if I finally just got sick of living in filth but I made myself move it today and got some stuff done.  Hopefully I can continue tomorrow as well. 

Sims Family

A couple hours late and still nothing to show.  So yes I was up playing The Sims 3 tonight.  After trying to get it to play most the day doing all these random computer updates.  Found out I was using the wrong disc when my husband got home.  So I've been playing all night.  Created a new family that matches mine currently.  Husband, female child, and unknown baby on the way. 

I'm actually quite embarrassed to like games like this.  It absolutely pulls me in and I can't think straight about 'real' life.  I did some inner digging though and even though I know I have a lot to do to feel better and get more done,  I've accepted the fact that I'm allowed to have a little fun every once and a while and if that's what I want to do, that's what I want to do.  See most the time if I'm not feeling up to doing the million and one things I should be doing I just mope around feeling guilty and terrible.  And I think it's perpetual.  If I just allowed myself some free time without all the guilt just maybe I would have more energy the next day to get something done.  Just maybe if I stopped berating myself non stop all day long I would feel better?

So this is supposed to be me.  I really tried to bust out all my art skills and make it look like me, but it's barely a resemblance.  I think this picture is hilarious because I snapped it right as

'my' face turned sour...guess why?  Because the house is so messy!  Ha, nailed that on the head.

This is my Sim daughter, after creating my husband and I, I just used the genetics button.  She's in toddler stage but I'm guessing will grow up soon. 

This is 'my' Sim announcing pregnancy to daddy Sim and he is feeling tummy.  Probably my favorite part of the whole game.  Now if I can only tell my real husband to dote on me like that.  : )

Paper Box

Made a paper box for a gift today.  The idea just kind of came to me since I needed some sort of wrapping anyway.  I used this tutorial off of YouTube.


I'm a visual person so I don't think I could have gotten this from just written instruction, but once I watched this it was really easy.  I even let my daughter help me with the decorating, a little folding, and cutting.

It was fun and I could totally see us doing a lot more of these experimenting with different paper and using them for various things in Brielle's room.

Another boring post.  Not even a picture again.  Even still these take forever because my typing is very slugglish?  Not sure what that's all about.

So today I made it to auditions.  I've done small community theatre shows in the past and this one is a fundraiser for the local theatre in my hometown.  It's only 3 days a week practices and show is in March.  Short, funny and easy.  Plus it's a dinner theatre, how cool!  So I was pretty excited to go to auditions and the director made it sound like we would have a part just not sure what so that will be lots of fun.  Since I'm due in June I wasn't anticipating doing another show for at least another year.  In which point I might be pregnant again, who knows!  : )

I really need to get on the actually making something tangible kick again but honestly this pregnancy is kicking my but.  I'm not sure if my thyroid is a little wonky or iron or what but I just feel pretty lethargic most the time.    Plus we are trying to change the bedrooms around for the impending family addition and feel like there is so much 'other' stuff to do that I really don't have time to go make something silly.  I honestly thought about quiting already as I've been disappointed in myself but I really want to keep on keeping on and the whole point of this project is to stick with it and it will supposedly change your life.  So I'm trying to learn how to accept the little things I 'make' and it's been challenging and I've definitely strive to look deeper into what I did in a day.

Dinner Leftovers

Nothing special but I used some leftovers to make dinner today.  Again, I don't cook all that often being the wife of a 'semi-retired chef' and all .  So I just put some carrots and water a little pepper and ginger, chicken and then leftover spinach artichoke dip on top with more pepper.  That's it.  It wasn't amazing but it was nice and had that comfort food effect.  I love the crock pot it's so nice come dinner time to just have dinner be ready.  I was extra super tired today (found out I have slightly low iron) so that's the best I got.  And I don't even have a picture but let's be honest my pictures aren't all that great and it would just be chicken and carrots. 

Photo Album

I stole my grandma's camera the other day, so I can finally upload all her pictures.  So I uploaded them all to Walmart Photo Center, cropped/rotated/enhanced over 200 pictures from almost the last year.  I love pictures so it was fun and lazy to sit here most the day and go through pictures and it definitely helps that at least half of them are of my daughter. 




My Aunt, Uncle and Cousins



Hockey Tourney 3/11 (long, tiring day)



Mom, Dad, and Brother at college last spring





I didn't actually order this, but it's hilarious because my grandma tried to take a 'facebook' picture with my daughter





Phin and Brielle getting their groove on during Christmas celebrations





Brielle at her 3rd (gymnastics) birthday party

Raw Macaroons

What goes best with the Super Bowl?  Food of course!  This recipe doesn't really match the traditional football fare but I've been wanting to make something raw for quite some time.  And since I tend to have a sweet tooth I thought a raw dessert was perfect.  This was the first recipe I happened to find, and low and behold despite lacking on groceries I had everything.  The only exception was my dried coconut was sweetened so they turned out extra sweet.  Or maybe it was all that LOVE I put in?

Ingredients in.  I happened to have almond flour/meal so I was able to skip a step.  I wasn't going to process/blend it at all but then ended up deciding to since the coconut was rather coarse.  Oh an another variation of the recipe was that my dried 'cherries' was a blend of a couple different berries.

raw

Dehydrated.
 I don't have a dehydrator so I used the oven on the lowest setting possible, 170 degrees which might be above the 'raw' standards but it was a start none the less and they are yummy.


Oh and just to brag a little I technically made 2 things today.  I made my daughter a 'super bowl' sensory box.  It was lots of fun and kept her busy while we watched the game.  Just rice and little footballs.

Ear Ache : (

My daughter is complaining of an earch ache tonight.  A red eye, sore throat and runny nose it's probably an infection.  I decided to make some garlic oil for her.

 Coconut oil

Plus Garlic

Equals Garlic Oil

I have no idea if this is the 'right' way to make garlic oil but it's what I did and it also had the sum of some pretty great toasted garlic.  I just waited for it to cool and poored some in her ear for a while.  Off to go snuggle now, I hope she feels better in the morning.  Poor baby.