Bad Habits

I have this WONDERFUL habit of not doing laundry until the last possible second.  And the sad thing is, I have enough underwear to last A LONG time without doing laundry.  My husband does not.

It probably isn't the best wife idea to leave laundry until your husband starts begging you to wash his underwear before he starts turning them inside out.  Ok he didn't actually threaten to start wearing his underwear inside out.  But he did beg me to do laundry.

See... he's not allowed to do laundry.  He likes to dry things that shouldn't be dried.  Nobody's perfect. 

So yesterday, I did a million loads of laundry.  And folded them.  The miraculous part is that I also put them all away.

Phil checked to make sure I hadn't been abducted by aliens.

By the way, my lower back is super sore from loading and unloading the washing machine.  Just goes to show what excellent shape I am in.

Laundry Soap

Apparently I make everything from scratch now.  Here is a list of things I (and by I, I mean with a great deal of assistance from my husband) made from scratch this weekend:

-  Almond Milk
-  Ketchup (did you know it takes FOR STINKIN' EVER to make ketchup?)
-  Pickles
-  Hashbrowns (not that it is hard to make shredded potatoes from scratch.  But I peeled and grated 10 pounds of potatoes)
-  Laundry Soap

{We NEEDED the laundry soap.  Can't you see the pile of laundry in the background?}

I finally made laundry soap (using THIS RECIPE).  And it only took 9 months and 2 attempts to do so. 

And no... making laundry soap is not related to my upcoming low-iodine diet.

Why 2 attempts?  Because I forgot to add water when I melted my soap and ended up melting a spoon instead.  And it made our house smell like melted plastic and burnt soap.

I figure since apparently now I make EVERYTHING from scratch, why not throw in laundry soap?

I have crazy sensitive skin.  We can't use fabric softener.  No laundry soap with scents.  So I was a little concerned about making my own soap.  But it has NO dyes and NO scents.  Just a bunch of soap.  It works and our clothes smell clean.

And now we are the proud owners of 10 gallons of laundry soap.  I estimate we won't need more laundry soap for about a year.  At least.  And I think, over the course of the year, I have saved us a whopping $100.  Cha-ching.

I think this makes me an official pioneer woman.  Which makes total sense, since I live in Oregon (the end of the Oregon Trail).  We did spend quite a bit of time in elementary school learning how the pioneers lived, complete with making our own wool and square dancing.

I think I am ready for my own butter-churn.

Oh wait... after next week I can't have butter.  Ok in a month and a half, I'll be ready for my butter churn.

Laundry Soap

I am a reality show junky.  I don't watch all of it.  I can only take one show based out of New Jersey.  I can only watch a show about the Kardashians when I am in just the right mood (which isn't often).  And I don't like the Bachelorette, but I love the Bachelor.

LOVE Big Brother.  Seriously.  I think it is the best part of Summer.  The year of the writer's strike, they had 2 season of Big Brother in one year and I LOVED IT.

And I pretty much love any show on TLC which involves large families:  Quints by Surprise, Sister Wives (man that show is fascinating), 17/18/19 Kids and Counting.

So I was listening to an old episode of 17 Kids and Counting and they were discussing how they save money with such a large family.  I took notes because I am CHEAP.  And Phil and I have some large purchases in our future I think (i.e. cars since both of our are getting up there in age/miles).

So of the things, I already do like shopping at thrift stores.  I haven't gone thrifting yet because I haven't had time, but I have been shopping clearance.  Tegan and I have been shopping clearance racks for a while.  I got some pretty good deals at Old Navy a few weeks ago.  I will talk about those in another post.

But another thing they mentioned was making their own laundry soap.  They went through it on the show and it looked super easy.  AND it was super cheap.  Basically it will work out to being $2 for 640 loads of laundry.  It won't save us a TON of money, but I think it will add up. 

We just bought some laundry soap on sale a few weeks ago, so we won't be needing to making any laundry soap for a while.  But I am going to start looking for the supplies so that we can make it probably in a month or so.

I am guessing I will have a little more soap than Phil and I will need in like a year.  So if anyone is interested in trying some of the laundry soap after I make it, I will sell you some.  For the cost of the soap (aka 20 cents a gallon which is about 64 loads).

Love, Mrs. Janney