The Power of a Note & Homemade Laundry Detergent

As much as the mommy in me has longed for a house of our own again, there are some MAJOR perks of living with Mimi and Papa.  The perks far outweigh any frustration I've felt while I living here.  I don't have to cook every night, and when I do cook, I have a cooking buddy (Mimi) to chat with while I'm cooking!  She even pours me a glass of wine without me so much as having to ask.  The glass of Cabernet appears on the island in the kitchen every evening. 

I had some errands to run one morning last week and Brooke and I came into the house after several hours of being out.  I put down our bags and found this note on the counter:

Now, after a busy morning out...to come home to this sweet note and know that I was one call away from giving her my grocery "wish list"... well, you busy moms know how much this means!  I love it because this is SO Mimi.  She is the ultimate caretaker/homemaker.  She always has fresh juice or sweet tea on hand.  She can ALWAYS feed you and cure your ailments.  She is such a great listener and she's always happy.  She's truly a pleasure to be around.  I came home from work tonight to a kitchen full of food -freshly made chicken salad, warm butter croissants and the most delicious banana pudding that you've ever tasted.  One good thing about moving in a few weeks is that I'm sure to lose a few pounds!

Her note made me reflect on notes in general... they are so wonderful to receive, especially when they're hand-written.  I still value a nice hand-written note.  Quite often I put a little note in Champ's lunchbox.  They are usually short and sweet - they go something like this:  "Champ, I'm proud of you.  Have a super day.  See you in carpool."  Or "Champ, you played a great basketball game last night.  You rock.  Mom"  It takes me less than half a minute to jot something thoughtful down and slip it into his lunchbox.  A couple of months ago, he came downstairs for breakfast one morning before school and he was looking through his open lunchbox on the counter - I thought he was looking at what I put in it (I was waiting for him to say, "Mom, I didn't want a ham sandwich...", but a few seconds later, he walked over to me with a pen and piece of paper in hand and said, "Here mom, you can write your note with this."  Talk about melting my heart... Now, I do realize that any day now, these notes will become embarrassing and may spark anger if he sees one, but I'll savor each day until then!

These little notes mean so much.  Matt worked late last week and Matthew left a sweet note for him that said something like, "Dad, I hope you had a GREAT day!  I love you so much.  See you in the morning!"  Matt saw that note after a 15 hour day and it warmed his heart (those are not Matt's words - just my interpretation). 

If you're not a note writer but want to put something in your child's lunchbox, Learning Express sells cool little lunchbox notes that say cool facts and fun statistics.  I think they cost under $5.00 and you can grab them at the checkout counter. 

Now... www.pinterest.com has become a pass time for me.  I find myself scrolling through it on my phone quite often throughout the day.  I've actually become somewhat of a "Pin-aholic" - but I've gotten some great ideas (remember the chalkboard from a few weeks ago?) and tasty recipes from it.  Well, inspired by Pinterest, I made my own laundry detergent a few weeks ago.  I was intrigued by the fact that it costs $.01 a load (I figured that regular detergent costs about a quarter a load), and I am TIRED of paying so much for laundry detergent each week. 

I bought the supplies:

I don't think I spent more than $8.00 on the three of these items.  I bought them at Publix on the cleaning aisle. 

First, grate 1/3 of the bar of Fels-Naptha. 

Put your grated soap in a pot with 6 cups of water and heat on low until the soap melts. Don't let the soap boil. Once all the soap is completely melted, add 1/2 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup borax and stir until it is dissolved. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens (almost as thick as honey) Remove from heat.

Pour 4 cups of hot tap water into a big 5 gallon bucket. Add the soap mixture and stir it up. If you want to add a few drops of essential oil to give it a certain smell, now is the time to do it.  I have read that tea-tree oil is a lice repellent - I thought that if I had some one hand, that would be a great one to add, but I didn't add any essential oils to mine. 

Now add one gallon of hot tap water plus 6 more cups.   Stir well.  At this point, I used a funnel and poured this into three empty detergent bottles (that I saved).

I then used some masking tape to label them.



My clothes smell clean - I still use Bounty dryer sheets.  Would I do this again?  Sure!  At $.01 a load, the 20 minute process was worth it.  The true test will be when baseball starts back up.  I'll report back and let you know if the red clay comes out of the boys' white baseball pants.