SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

This is a guest post by Rach of Rach's Blog Bite; if you're interested in guest posting for Sister Wisdom, check out the guidelines.

A while ago a light bulb went off and I decided to start making my own cleaning products at home. Okay, it really wasn't a light bulb. It was more like major bolt of lightning, striking right down the middle of our expenses.

It really just ticked me off that I was paying so much for detergent, {laundry and dish}, our cleaning products and our fabric softener. It felt like I was just throwing money away. That crap is just ridiculously over-priced, and a lot of it is super chemically {of the "OMG I can't believe that is really in there" kind of chemicals}...

So enter me with my bright idea. "I will just make my own." My friends scoffed. Never had I had a friend actually scoff, but at this idea they did. They seemed to think that Walmart had homemade laundry detergent: the kind that comes in a cardboard box and says TIDE in big blue letters! I was determined. I figured it couldn't be that difficult or expensive.

So, I did it. Here's the “recipe” and you can see it is pretty basic.  There are so many different ways to make this stuff.  Me being me-{lazy} I picked the easiest one.  It works. Plain and simple.  Your clothes are clean, there are not chemicals breaking your clothes down {saving you money there as well!}, and it's just a better way to take care of your stuff.

Rach's Homemade Laundry Detergent

1 bar grated soap (I use the 3/$1 from the dollar store)
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Soda (Not to be confused with Baking Soda...)

Directions

Mix together until the grated soap starts to dissolve.
Use 1 tbsp./load
***The only place near me that I could find washing soda is Harris Teeter on the laundry aisle. Look up- You'll find it on the top shelf. [Annie's note: I've seen washing soda at Wal-Marts in my area, greater St. Louis.]
I usually grate 6-9 bars at one time- this makes a HUGE batch that will last for 3-4 months! (Remembering that there are only 3 of us in the house and you only have to use 1 tbsp. /load.)

Once I started making laundry detergent at home I looked around knowing there had to be away to do fabric softener the same way {read: the cheap way!}. I googled it, {I google everything} and this was the simplest, cheapest one that I found.

All you need is a Downy ball, vinegar and any type of fragrance oil that you like. I know what you are thinking... and no, your clothes are not going to smell like vinegar. If you use this oil - Downy April Fresh fragrance oil - that's what your clothes are going to smell like!
I mix the solution in a pitcher and just pour in the Downy ball- I purchase a 16oz. bottle of the fragrance oil approximately every 9-10 months.
You can do this even cheaper, and not use the oil- that's just for your nose's sake anyway!

Rach's Homemade Fabric Softener

1 gallon white vinegar
2 teaspoons fragrance or essential oils

Directions

Mix essential oils into vinegar. {I mix in the vinegar jug then pour into a smaller pitcher just because it's easier to handle!} Add to Downy ball and toss it in the wash!
Depending on what EO smell you use- you may need to use a little more- try a test wash first, then add a drop or two at a time.

Rach of Rach's Blog Bite is a fun, real, and hilarious blogger who keeps me coming back to her blog just to see what she's going to be up to next. As Rach puts it, she writes about "Misadventures from my kitchen, my attempts at getting crafty and other things I find I think I need to try!" She's always trying new things, living and learning even when it's messy, and picking up some great ideas and skills in the process. I've picked up some super recipes ( cookies to die for) and what-to-read tips as she shares from her kitchen and her 52-in-52 reading challenge. Great giveaways, too: I just WON my first-ever blog giveaway on Rach's Blog Bite! Wheeee! Thanks, Rach! Go check out her site and I guarantee you'll have fun.

Something about home won't let go of us. (Is it that pile of laundry wrapped around our ankles?)
It doesn't matter where you are in life: a college gal in a dorm room, a working woman in an apartment, a wife, a business owner, a stay-at-home mom or working mom or single mom or not a mom at all.

We all need home, and it falls to us women to create it. Come on: we know men are smart and capable, but they don't get this home thing. We do. But that doesn't mean we always know how to make it happen.

Home should nourish and nurture us... but sometimes home just drains us.
Home should welcome and comfort us... but sometimes all we want to do is run away.

I'd like to invite all you women to participate in a new series on my blog. Instead of drawing lines and making assumptions, let's find our common ground. Wherever we are in life, we all have a home. And as the women, we're the ones making it, whether just for ourselves or for other people too.

What matters? What doesn't? How do you handle the burn-out? How do you keep your mind engaged? How do you throw off the guilt? How do you quit comparing and start enjoying? What about hospitality? What about balance? What about that moment when you realize that if you have to sweep-the-floor-one-more-time-you-will-scream-so-help-me-God?

Please join in. There will be a new post running every Monday for the next four weeks, but I'd love to have more from different perspectives. Read along, comment, discuss, be sarcastic, ask questions, give advice, and let me know if you're interested in writing a post, too.

• May 24: guest post by Marci of Overcoming Busy
• May 27: SLOT OPEN - guest post by YOU?
  
• May 31: guest post by Leslie Ann of Snippets by Leslie Ann
  
• June 3: SLOT OPEN - guest post by YOU?
  
• June 7: guest post by Betsy of Beauty-Women Only and Be of Good Courage
  
• June 10: SLOT OPEN - guest post by YOU?
  
• June 14: guest post by Haley of EyeJunkie
  
• June 17: SLOT OPEN - guest post by YOU?
  

This is a guest post by Marci of Overcoming Busy. Are you interested in writing a guest post? See how here.

When Annie asked me to write this post, I was excited.  Modern Housekeeping - what an interesting topic!  This should be fun to write about.  I feature myself as a Modern Housekeeper with a traditional bent.  However, as I began to collect my thoughts and actually put them down on paper (yes, I still write on paper!), so many thoughts and ideas ran through my head.  Which direction should I go?

Do I write about how I keep a home?  My housekeeping schedules that are set up for a task a day?  The morning and bedtime routines my kids and I have to keep us on task (and so no one forgets to brush their teeth)?

My ideas on what makes a house a home?  Is it love, laughter, good snacks?

Do I write about how I never thought I would be a SAHM and had a grand plan of a successful career before I had children?  How I thought I had to make a difference in the world before I realized I needed to make a difference in my family?

Would readers want to hear about how I home school my daughter so she can be shaped and molded by her parents and carefully chosen others and not her 9 year old peers?

Should I write about how planning my meal each week saves my family and me time, money and stress?

How about disciplining children with love, yet effectively enough to keep them from misbehaving again?  OK.  I don’t know how to pull that off yet, but if you can, let me know!  SOON!!

Do I write about how it is difficult sometimes to balance family life and blogging?

Keeping a home in this day and age is a challenge.  There is so much to consider and to balance.   We are pulled in so many directions and often inaccurately feel we need to be perfect in each area!  For such a modern, convenient society, modern housekeeping is just plain hard!  And apparently so is writing about it!

Today's 2 Cents Courtesy of...

Marci: encourager, blogger, wife, mom, woman who strives to eliminate the busy and pursue the meaningful. She helps others do the same with her practical wisdom on organizing and simplifying and her regular features like menu plans and an Article Club. I've gained from her blog inspiration to change for the better, and practical tips on how to do it. Head on over to Overcoming Busy to learn more about (and from) this gracious woman.

What's your 2 cents?

So I was thinking about what I mean by Modern Homemaking. I throw the term around, nonchalant, basically because I want to say hey I'm a cool hip young Mama, I can take care of my house and kids and still rock out on a Friday night.
Except.
Except that, sans caffeine, I will most likely be asleep by 9:00 on a Friday night.
Except that I've never really thought of myself as cool or hip, even when there might have been a smidge of validity to it.

These exceptions lead me to conclude that what I think I mean by Modern Homemaking isn't really what I mean at all.
(They also lead me to conclude that I think way too much about things that probably aren't important.)

Things I Am Trying to Say

What am I trying to say, then?

I'm trying to say that the divide between "career woman" and "housewife" is arbitrary, stupid, and well past its expiration date.

I'm trying to say that there is glory, beauty, and honor in caring for your home and those who live in it with you. Even when that caring means picking up dirty socks, washing another load of linens, putting together another last-minute dinner.

I'm trying to say that I do value the daily managing and making of a home, but I don't value many of the standard side items.

I'm trying to say that I'm coming to peace with my own decisions. It's okay that I make a quick dinner so I have time to write an article. It's okay that I don't make dinner at all because I am flowing with this chapter and I want to get it done. It's okay that I close the laptop to do the laundry. And it's okay when the laptop, the laundry, and everything else must wait because I am resting, thinking, being. Or because I have fallen asleep on the couch again...

Homemaking is a term relegated to certain categories: outdated 50s-esque domestic mamas or crafty creative DIY types or simplifying, organizing comfort mavens. None of us fit perfectly into any category, and some of us resist categorization at all. We're all unique, but we feel like by identifying ourselves as someone interesting in "homemaking" we are instantly boxed, labeled, and shelved.

I tend to resent that just a little bit.
Okay, a lot.

Modern homemaking isn't about wearing vintage skirts or knitting scarves or cooking gourmet meals or having children or even having a husband. Wherever you live, with whomever you live, you can either make a home to dwell in or clean a house to sleep in. Those are two different experiences.

Home is important. We need home. We need the atmosphere of comfort, warmth, order, freedom. We need space to relax in, stretch out in. We need space by which we identify ourselves, in which we can be ourselves.

I've never lived alone, so all my talk of home includes, in my mind, the people we share a home with. But that's not even the core of it. Home can exist whether it is for me or for us. And sometimes, depending on the circumstances, you have to create a little home for me within the larger house for all of us. Sometimes that's how life is: not ideal. But you shouldn't wait for ideal.

Modern homemaking doesn't look the same for everybody. I am a stay-at-home Mom and a freelance writer; among my friends and acquaintances are women who are single, single or separated with children, separated without children, living alone, living with parents, living with friends, starting a career, having babies, staying at home with kids, working part-time, working full-time, running a business, working from home... you name it. All sorts of in-between places, roles that aren't clear-cut in a world that likes simple categories.

But all of these women are in the midst of daily making a home.

So my question is this: what is it about making a home that is important to all of us, as different as we are? How are we the same? How are we different? What can we learn from each other, both in terms of inspiration and practical, day-to-day methods? Are we willing to expand our category blinders a bit and see that the world - even the world of something like modern homemaking - is a bigger and more varied place than we knew?
Okay, that was more than one question. I'll narrow it down to one, because this is the one I'd really like to hear your answers to.
When you clean, or cook, or hang a picture, or wash a towel, or paint a wall, or organize the closet, or any of the myriad items that fall under "modern homemaking"...
What are you trying to say?

I've got a little plan. I've coerced some of my friends into writing guest posts for me so we can a few different perspectives. These guest posts will be running for the next several Mondays, the day I normally post some house/home related article. Next Monday will be Marci from Overcoming Busy. Stay tuned!

-

Images

1.What, you expect me to use this? courtesy of NicasaurusRex on Flickr.

Once upon a time, I had an elaborate morning schedule/routine all written out which included my daily housework items. It made me not want to get out of bed... and I'm a morning person.
Simplicity works best for me. I quit making lists and I just started doing what needs to be done every day.

daily routine

My "daily routine" usually means I sweep, straighten, and do a load of laundry every day. And take out any stinky diapers that have accumulated in the trash can. I cook and clean up the kitchen as needed (oddly, "as needed" falls into a three-times-a-day pattern almost every day, something about meals I guess). I don't write this stuff down anymore. I don't need to, because what I'm doing is intuitive, simple, simply what needs to be done. (I do write down my weekly routine because otherwise I would never wash the windows or dust the furniture.)

Other than that, if something I see is dirty, I either clean it right away or ignore it. It usually takes less time to just tackle the job than it does to get my calendar and write it down on a future to-do list. If I don't have time (or the will or the inclination) then, I ignore it until I notice it again and do have time.

weekly routine

This is the current weekly housekeeping groove I'm rocking. It's working for me. It's better than cleaning the whole house every day or not cleaning at all. What is that thing people are always talking about? Balance? Yeah. That might be worth looking into...

• Monday: sweep and mop floors, empty trash, dust (if I get to it).
• Tuesday: clean bathrooms, vacuum rugs.
• Wednesday: wash windows (only the ones that look really dirty), clean up porch and walkways.
• Thursday: try to catch up on laundry.
• Friday: re-clean what needs it.
• Saturday: make Sunday's lunch.
• Sunday: plan for the upcoming week.

a few things I've learned

Work on changing and improving one habit, one area at a time, establishing one habit at a time, making big progress toward one goal at a time. Commit to success at that one thing and just keep other areas on a routine, maintaining. Focus your energies, your attention - even if just for one week at a time.
The thing about clutter. My goal is an uncluttered, open, orderly, easy-to-maintain home. Stuff takes up so much time and work. If you're strapped for cash, take the opportunity and sell some stuff. Get more space and more cash. Get a little ruthless and get rid of any and all that you do not "know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."
And the useful thing: let's just say that if it's not actively useful - at least once a week, or on a regular basis - then it isn't worth keeping. It isn't useful if it isn't being used. Don't let the potential keep you locked in a clutter paralysis.

about cleaning supplies

I've already admitted I'm lazy, but you just can't leave well enough alone, can you? Fine. I'll admit it, then. I'm lazy and I'm cheap. The last thing I want to spend money on is......... housecleaning supplies! Come on, people! They're overpriced and they smell funny and they all essentially do the same thing and most of them are toxic and you still want me to buy 17 different kinds just to clean my bathroom?

I think not, my friends. I think not.

In my brilliance, I decided to make my own. How hard can it be? Well, kind of involved as it turns out. Do you remember that whole laziness factor? Yeah. It comes into play again here. Making an array of nicely bottled and labeled housecleaning supplies really isn't the way I want to spend my weekend, as it turns out. I could totally cheap out and just buy the dollar store all-purpose cleaner and use it on everything, but the toxicity factor bothers me just enough.

Here's what I did instead. I bought an empty spray bottle ($1). Then I bought a liter of Dr. Bronnor's Peppermint Castile Soap ($14.99 at my Walgreens). I already had some baking soda.

I filled the spray bottle almost full with water, added a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, a few tablespoons of the peppermint soap, capped it, shook it, and voila: my cleaning arsenal. That $15 bottle of castile soap will create, I don't know, like 50 spray bottles of my cleaning concoction. Peppermint is a natural antibacterial agent. Baking soda is good for something, I forget what. Plus when I clean the whole house smells like peppermint which makes it seem even cleaner than it is.

I use this on everything: bathrooms, floors, spills in the refrigerator, unidentifiable gooey spots on the wall, kitchen counters, mirrors, furniture. That and a bottle of Windex for the windows and I am set. Sometimes the lazy-cheap thing kind of turns out nice, after all.

Sometimes necessity isn't the mother of invention. Sometimes laziness is...

Images

1. I just can't wait to get home courtesy of Ale Bonvini on Flickr.

2. Look at the pretty sponges courtesy of Horia Varlan on Flickr.

in even the laziest creature among us
a wisdom no knowledge can kill is astir--
now dull eyes are keen and now keen eyes are keener
(for young is the year,for young is the year)
--let's touch the sky:
with a great(and a gay
and a steep)deep rush through amazing day

Pete and Repeat Were Sittin' on a Fence

The thing that kills me about housework is the repetition. No, that's not it. The thing that kills me about housework is the thought of all those other things I could be doing instead of housework. Repetition is just part of life, after all.

We shower every day (or thereabouts, hopefully), we say hello and goodbye and I love you, we eat three meals (or thereabouts), we sleep, we work. So on. Life is full of repetition, and that isn't always bad despite the occasional plunge into boredom. There are ways to avoid the boredom. Read the rest of this entry »

"Nothing mankind has yet made is worth any regret." T.E. Lawrence

As of this writing, my kids are cute little stair steps: one, two, and three years old. And the reason I'm writing is because the stair steps are asleep and don't need my attention. When the stair steps are awake, writing is only a fond dream. A fond dream, kind of like the fond dream I had of what my house would be like... before I actually had a house of my own.

Transitioning Into Real Life

I'm one of those (rare?) folks who went straight from Mom and Dad's place to newlywed life. A tricky transition, at best. I understood budgets and how to clean and cook - how to rearrange furniture - how to pick out matching curtains.

But I didn't understand how to transform myself from someone who cared more about reading a great book or writing a great article than rearranging furniture or hanging up curtains. Oh, don't get me wrong. I do care what my house looks like. I care a lot. It pricks my pride when things are, well, iffy. But I don't care enough to put all my waking hours into turning this place - our home - into something magazine worthy. And when you're working with a newlywed budget for home decor - in our case, a wopping $0 - all you can put into it is time.

You Say Crafty, I Say Crappy...

I tried a lot more DIY type stuff before babies. I sewed a little curtain, with a very crooked hem, to hang over my kitchen window. I didn't have any curtain rod or hardware, so I bent two forks and managed to attach them to the wall, then used welding wire to string the curtain. It looked... well, let's just be honest: it looked iffy.

My talent does not lie in the crafty, sewing, DIY, decorating world. Oh dear, no. I am finally realizing this, instead of pretending like I have a latent talent for it that just hasn't been discovered yet. (By the way, did you ever notice that "latent" and "talent" are the same but for two letters swapped in position? Hmmmm. That might mean something.)

My latent talent remains hidden, well below the surface. And I'm kind of coming to a strange peace with letting it stay there.

Proof I Am Getting Somewhere

Point A: I cajoled a dear friend of mine into sewing up the curtains for my front window, after purchasing the fabric with an "Oh sure I can do this, it's just a big rectangle" pep talk and then staring, guiltily, at the fabric for 3 months.

Point B: I have stricken the phrase "I need to paint that ___________" from my vocabulary for at least the next three months. I do need to paint things, lots of walls and cabinets and doors and trimwork, but I've quit pretending that I actually want to or will DO that painting.

I'm way too busy with other things, things I love more, things that matter more to me. Family, teaching my children, getting outside, dates with my husband, losing the last 20 pounds of baby weight, writing writing writing and reading.

I Didn't Think I Was a Liar

There is a level of honesty with myself in those statements that I never gotten to before. I kept putting things on my list and putting them off and feeling guilty and making plans and repeating the cycle. And all the time I wasn't getting any of those "house" things done and I was distracting myself from the things that really matter to me.

The truth about myself and my love-hate relationship with my dwelling is this:

• Truth 1: I love it when it looks good, but I hate putting the time in to make it look good, or better, than it does now. Regular cleaning is about all I can manage. (And I confess, even the cleaning is below my Mom's standard. Please don't lift rug corners, touch over-eye-level surfaces, or open closets in my home.)
• Truth 2: Functionality matters more to me than trendy or pretty or even matching.
• Truth 3: I would rather (by 1000%) spend my "extra money" (ha ha, what is THAT?) on a) more books or b) really good food or c) a massage than on decor, curtains, pillows, fabric, furniture, etc. You know, that stuff that makes a house look good.
• Truth 4: I'm not as much of a DIY Frugalista Home-Freak as I'd like to pretend. I'm not going to spend my weekend breaking down that toddler bed, stripping it and repainting it and turning it into a headboard. No, I am not. I am going to spend my weekend playing with my kids, working in the garden, hiking in the woods, doing the absolute minimum cleaning necessary, and maybe baking some really fattening but delicious cookies to eat while I finish my current read. (Note to self: put that half-reupholstered rocking chair on Craigslist asap.)
• Truth 5: I am, finally, five years in to this whole house/home/marriage thing, okay with those truths about myself. I am finally not berating myself for being a secret member of the Anti-Cutesy-Crafty-Home-Decor Mom Brigade. I don't have anything against cutesy or crafty or home decor, I'm just done feeling guilty because I don't spend my time on it. It's just not me.

The Time Has Come

There is one last truth that accompanies the previous five, and you know what it is already. It's the title of the post, it's the inevitable break-up. I can't expect to have a perfect (or even semi-near-the-neighborhood-of-Perfect) house if I'm not willing to put time into it. This is a simple concept, and I get it.
It's time to let go.

One day, I hope, mere years rather than decades from now, all this investment in writing writing writing and reading will have paid off in some sort of tangible (read: bank account) way, and then I might revive the relationship with my perfect house.

No, not that I'll have "made it" as a writer, so I can take some time off to work on the house. Heck, no. Just that I'll finally be rich enough to hire somebody to do it for me...

-----

Images

1. The red house with cows courtesy of Jody McNary Photography on Flickr.

The elements of an orderly day are (in no particular order)...
1. A Plan
2. A Routine
3. A Limit (or lots of them, as the case may be) Read the rest of this entry »

I'm linked up with OrgJunkie's Menu Plan Monday. You should be,too.

Sometimes, when it comes to food, the simplest is the best.

Let's talk about soup.

I love soup. Soup is my friend, except in summer when I'm in a state of perpetual sweatiness. Then the only soup I'm into is gazpacho, ice-cold, but during the other three blessed seasons of the year, me and soup, we're tight. We're buds. We're close.

I could happily eat soup every night, but I don't because 1) sometimes I'm lazy and I like just throwing chicken breasts in the baking dish and voila! dinner; and 2) my husband likes soup, but not quite as much as I do, so I try to be nice and make stuff besides soup too; and 3) a 3 1/2 year old and a 2 year old eating soup every night is too hard on my kitchen, and the cleanliness thereof. I don't like wiping soup off the floor every evening. (Did you catch that "sometimes I'm lazy" bit, above? That comes into play again here.) Read the rest of this entry »