homemade liquid laundry detergent

This liquid laundry detergent is simple and can reuse the same laundry detergent container repeatedly, as opposed to purchasing more plastic that has been shipped hundreds of miles.  I love this recipe and use the same amount of soap as with the store-bought soaps, though it needs a good shake before each use.  

Recipe and directions from simplyresourceful:
1 cup hot tap water
1.5 oz grated bar soap
1/4 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
2 T 20 Mule Team Borax
essential oils (optional)

Add soap flakes to saucepan with water.  Stir over med-low heat until melted.  Fill a 1 gallon jug half full with hot tap water.  Add melted soap, washing soda, and borax.  Stir well until all powder is dissolved.  Fill bucket to top with more hot water.  Stir, cover, and let sit overnight to thicken.  Shake before each use.  Optionally, add a few drops of essential oil.  Use 1 oz. per load in a front-loading washing machine.

Adapted from www.duggarfamily.com/recipes

vanilla extract with vodka

Today was my first attempt at vanilla extract.  Homemade vanilla extract is simply delicious and I can't wait to have my own to use in the kitchen.  It has taken me about a month to round up the vanilla beans and vodka.  I found a simple recipe that called for two cups of vodka and six (cut-in-half) vanilla beans placed in a glass jar in a dark space for eight weeks.  When it comes to recipes, I need something simple to concoct while balancing the needs of my two young children.  It took me a few minutes to cut the beans in half, add them to the vodka, put it all in the cupboard with a label, and to mark the date on the calendar eight weeks from now.

When the time has arrived to use the vanilla extract, I will fill some small dark glass bottles I have on hand (from all those prenatal vitamins), label them nicely, and share with friends.  The recipe suggests adding a bean to each completed jar, then simply topping off the vodka each time the extract is down to half a jar.  ("I like to put a vanilla bean in each bottle. This way the extract will keep gaining in flavor and you can tell them that by adding a little vodka when it is halfway used up will replenish your supply of vanilla. It will dilute it for a while but it will regain strength quickly.")  This is the gift that keeps on giving.  You may want to mention that you can reuse this jar instead of your friend sending it on to recycling.  You could include a recipe for vanilla also, so your friends can make their own.  This vanilla extract already smells so delicious!

vanilla beans, vodka, and a glass jar

storing in a cool dark place for at least eight weeks

curing the restlessness

Hannah and Oscar, my first two babies

It is interesting how life ebbs and flows in so many ways.  Our schedule wanes from four outside activities a day to nothing.  Our kitchen is full of food and suddenly we can't put one more meal together.  I can tackle several large projects in one day and then am unable to clear the dishes off the table the next day.  One week my parents and I both have a beloved older pet, the next week we are grieving our disquieting petletness.  This movement between peaks and valleys is even evident in my blogging, as you'll see I post five blogs in one day and then don't return for a month or more.  This is the rhythm of our lives.  Being a homemaker with young children, I am able to appreciate life in the rhythms it provides.

While I have been away from the blogging, I have been reading several books, spending time playing with my babies, saying goodbye to my cat of 15 years, and occasionally venturing to our beautiful Oregon Coast.  After my last blog session, I was feeling a peak of restlessness and anxiety.  When I reached out to my beloved crone friend who has experience with many of life's challenges, she suggested I focus on one task at a time, don't worry about bringing in money, but focus on helping my family in a variety of ways: storing food for the cold seasons, organizing my closets and cupboards and files, making crafts my family will give as gifts at holiday time, planning a birthday party without purchasing any new materials, and providing healthy meals for my family.  Those simple suggestions have kept me calm for several weeks now.

There are always so many projects yet to start and finish, such as a memory book of our little kitty, granola to bake, dishes to wash, slugs and a mole to battle, friends to visit, and cards to send.  With our schedule finally slowing down and so many yet-to-accomplish tasks awaiting my attention, I now remember to breathe and observe the ebb and flow of life with small, busy children.  I am blessed with the privilege of tackling these tasks when the little ones are content and when my head is securely fastened to my body.  There will be other days to accomplish more than starting the laundry.  Today may not be one of them.  Miraculously, I did accomplish this, finding the superpowers to blog while my children squeal and giggle and (honestly...) attempt to sleep.

remembering my gardening companion, Oscarito el gatito (the little cat)

recycling old tires

Our yard has several spare tires hanging around, and in the spring cleaning we knew they had to go.  My husband's first idea was to chop them up, spray them red, and use them as yard bark.  When I didn't approve of that plan, we agreed to photograph them and post them on craigslist.com.  Who was willing to purchase old tires from our yard?  Or pick them up for free?  Nobody, apparently.  

My recycling friend directed me to contact Environmentally Conscious Recycling to find out where to recycle the tires and at what price.  This organization can help people recycle a variety of goods.  Most of our paper and metals are picked up by our curbside waste service, though we still have many materials that need to be recycling elsewhere.  We make a trip every few months to Far West Fibers to recycle plastics (separated into push-your-finger-through-it plastics, bottles with necks, and hard plastics) and a variety of other goods.  They even recycle shoes!  Styrofoam is recycled nearby (signs posted at Far West).  

In our spring cleaning, we've chosen to rid ourselves of most of our plastic kitchenware (with hidden BPA and pthalates).  I spent days (honestly, weeks...) debating where to send the tupperware.  Finally, we settled on passing it on to my mother's local homeless shelter's food kitchen for daily soups.  These containers will be sent out with daily soups and brought back for refills.  The other plastics, such as sippy cups, now reside on a shelf at the local Value Village.  As for the tires in our yard, they will soon be recycled and hitting the road as either new pavement or shoes.

* I chose not to post photos of our tires here, as there were no cute Michelin babies bouncing on them.

Update 10/2001: In the end, we simply dropped off eight used tires at a local tire store.  They will sell them at a discount to someone who can use them.

homemade beeswax lip balm

My friend Holly and I undertook the challenge of making our own lip balm.  You may ask, like a friend of ours did, "Why?!"  Well, we do love a challenge, making household goods, and using basic ingredients to make products we would otherwise buy in plastic packaging produced in far away places.  We love making gifts for our friends and trying these new projects with our children.  

For lip balm, we thought of giving friends bee-themed baskets, such as beeswax lip balm, local honey, and beeswax candles.  First, we collected the ingredients and containers for making our own lip balm.  Holly rendered her own beeswax from last year's hives, along with making her own vanilla from rum.  She purchases a gallon of coconut oil at a time, as she uses it for many home-assembled goods.  Her honey came from Zenger Farms, where she knows it is locally and sustainably produced.  We were ready to put it all together once we'd gathered supplies and children. 

Recipe:

1 cup (225 g) shredded beeswax 

14 oz coconut oil

5 T (100 g) honey

5 T pure vanilla extract

Heat the wax in a saucepan over low heat to 150 degrees.  In a separate saucepan, heat the oil to the same temperature.  When both are heated to the proper temperature, add the coconut oil to the beeswax, remove the pan from heat, and stir steadily until well blended.  Then add the honey and the vanilla extract, and continue to stir until well blended.  Pour into tubes or tubs, allow to cool overnight, and then cap the containers and store at room temperature, out of direct sunlight.    **Fills 100, .15-ounce lip-balm tubes**

(This recipe wax taken from The Backyard Beekeeper by: Kim Flottum and then from simplyresourceful.blogspot.com)

half-ounce tins, rendered beeswax, and local honey

a math lesson in measuring by weight and volume

Hannah was especially helpful with opening and sorting all the balm tins.

We followed the directions, measuring things out by volume.  It turned out that the recipe's equivalent measurements (cups verses grams) were not truly equivalent.  When cutting the recipe in half, we needed two cups of shredded beeswax (as opposed to the half-cup suggested by the recipe) to get the 115 grams for our recipe.  We made this recipe a second time after finding the differences in equivalents during the first batch.  For both our batches, there was severe separation of the oil and water-based ingredients.

Some containers had a liquid (vanilla honey) mixture in the bottoms.

The honey and rum vanilla are quite delicious, but they make for a very messy lip balm.

Some of our lip balms came out with just the waxy top (wax and oil), though many of them have liquid trapped underneath or floating to the top.  I separated the successfully solid balms from the ones containing liquids.  The solids I am able to give to others, and I have made use of the separated tins for myself.  Hannah and I drained the liquid and will use it in later recipes as vanilla, as it is mostly vanilla and honey.  We melted the solids down again to make our own container of lip balm.  Hannah and I are enjoying our new lip balm and I feel good providing my child with a healthy homemade way to moisturize her lips.  This activity has provided her the opportunity to learn some chemistry while helping to make lip balm.  Someday, when we attempt more lip balm, she will have more of a hand in the assembly and we will surely use a different recipe.

When It Starts to Snow (preschool book club)

With our refreshed excitement for extending stories, Hannah and I are first tackling our winter-based books before moving to the warmer weathered stories.  When It Starts to Snow is a simple book about where animals go when the weather gets cold.  Hannah's favorite part of the story is identifying all the animals and their habitats on the last page.  Here are some activities we've enjoyed through this book.

another winter book and red rectangular house

standing in the brick house she built for herself

When It Starts to Snow Activities (courtesy of Itty Bitty Bookworm Curriculum):

• look at the pictures, predict what the story is about
• build a birdhouse
• make popsicles and check on them every ten minutes as they start to freeze
• spray water on black construction paper, freeze it all, then look at the ice formations
• hide acorns in your tactile box for children to find like squirrels
• dress up in winter clothes
• make a birdfeeder with pinecone or bagel, peanut butter, birdseed, and string
• Read related stories
• The Big Snow by Berta Hader
• The Mitten by Jan Brett
• discuss real/non-fiction versus pretend/fiction
• choose a favorite part of the story and explain why it is your favorite
• sprinkle glue and hole punched holes onto a picture to make a snow scene
• look at geese flying in a row, kids walk in v formation, discuss how geese fly in v for two reasons: easy to keep up and less wind resistance so they can fly farther without having to rest
• make a red brick house out of red rectangles for the boy and other animals
• cut a hole in a shoe box and child makes a little mouse house
• complete the sentences: 
• When it is windy, I fly a kite.  When it is cold/hot/rainy...
• A shell is a home for a turtle.  A... is a home for a...
• the deer looks for moss and grass; go outside and find them yourself, identify different types and why the plants choose to be in that climate/habitat
• count piles of cotton balls and write the total number for each pile, add and subtract with them, writing out the number sentences (4+2=6), or ask child to place a certain number of balls in each spot
• talk about gray skies in book, mix black and white paint to make gray, paint your own gray sky or a painting of what the sky looks like right now
• animals seek shelter inside fallen trees, go outside and carefully find where animals may live in little hidden areas
• draw a picture of what you like to do in the snow, write about your drawing
• discuss how and why beavers live in their lodge in the water, collect twigs and sticks and make a beaver lodge in your yard

Peanut-butter Sandwich (preschool book club)

the girl who loves a peanut butter and jam sandwich

While working on other story extension ideas, Hannah came up with this one over lunch.  She loves the Shel Silverstein story from Where the Sidewalk Ends about the king obsessed with peanut butter sandwiches.  In fact, she sometimes resembles that king, except she drinks lots of water while downing sandwiches so her jaws don't clamp shut.  I think this particular king comes up over lunch almost every time we have these sandwiches.  I am thrilled my daughter is embracing Shel Silverstein's poems, as they were my favorites throughout childhood.  There is something nostalgic and exciting about watching our children enjoy the same things we did as children.

Hannah's ideas for Peanut-Butter Sandwich:

• homemade bread from Jon and Holly
• make homemade strawberry jam from her uncle's strawberries
• grind up our own peanuts
• throw a party to celebrate making our own sandwiches

My ideas on the same story:

• all the things above, plus:
• make the ingredients at the party
• "What is a sandwich?  What's your favorite sandwich and why?"
• read about the history of sandwiches
• use a variety of breads, nuts, and toppings (kiwi, banana, pickle, apple, cinnamon, honey)
• plant ingredients together: strawberries, grains, nuts, etc.
• read a passage from a children's book that talks about the importance of and care put into food preparation, such as "Little House on the Prairie"
• "What have you learned about sandwiches today?  Do you like a new kind of sandwich now?"

the king who had one sandwich too many, and then another