The Zereps

just thought i’d have a little show and tell about what i did today. i made our own laundry detergent and fabric softener! why, you might ask? well….to put it shortly and mildly, there’s lots of chemicals and unnecessary crap in commercial (i.e. stuff we’re told to buy) laundry detergent and even more so in fabric softer and dryer sheets. and not only do we breath that crap in but we also wear it against the largest organ of our bodies, our skin. SO….i researched some good recipes for some more natural (green, if you will) solutions! 😀

here’s my ingredients for both the detergent and softener. washing soda, borax, white distilled vinegar, fels naptha soap bars, baking soda, and essential oils.

i made the detergent first. i just grated a bar of soap into a bowl, added 2 cups of washing soda and 2 cups of borax, and my essential oils for a little kick. i used sweet orange with a cinnamon undertone. here’s the finished product in the canister…it only takes 2 tablespoons per large load.

next i mixed up the softener. i put the baking soda, about 1 to 1.5 cups, in a container, added 1 cup water, slowly added 2 cups vinegar (it fizzes), and then added 3 cups water and essential oils. it takes about 1 cup per large load, however the baking soda settles too much to use our automatic dispenser.

i just finished my first load with our awesome soap and it’s great! the laundry smelled fresh! i’m a happy camper, and so is eric. 🙂

btw, we have a shiney new maytag washer since our other one quit several weeks ago. i love it. 🙂 the old one was so noisy because the transmission was out. on a downside….this new purchase has pushed back the purchase of dining chairs, so for now, we’re eating on a clearance patio set while the table i made is in the living room. oh well…the joys of home ownership! 🙂

and take a look at jabba’s site! his 3rd birthday was yesterday and a good time was had by all!

super cool product post:

ok….so….i just mopped the floors…usually this entails using a swiffer and swiffer products. however lately i’ve begun to greatly dislike the amount of waste and type of waste involved with swiffering. seriously. dust pads you just throw away and mop pads you toss, both of which have plastic in them and just go fill up landfills, not to mention the chemical cleaning solution.

SO….this last weekend, as i was self-loathingly perusing the cleaning aisle for dust pads, i found the omop! it had the fundamental design of a swiffer, with a bottom for attaching pads and a long handle to push it around, BUT…..the dust pads are COMPOSTABLE! and the mop pad is WASHABLE microfiber! and the mopping solution is BIODEGRADABLE and won’t hurt my puppies! (note, eric and i are going to start composting…we throw away so much that we can use)

and, btw, it totally works better than a swiffer, my floors are much cleaner and smell nice and lemoney-gingery. 🙂

anyhoo…just wanted to share my super cool omop in case you, too, are sick of producing so much useless waste. 🙂 on a side note, it does come with a lot of packaging which i just had to throw away because we don’t have good recycling facilities here….kind of a bummer, but it is offset in the long run. and if you’re that concerned, just mop the floor with water, vinegar and a cloth. 😛

greetings!

as you may have noticed, eric and i aren’t doing too much. it’s not because we don’t want to, trust me! it’s just so hot! even though the temps don’t usually get above 98, the sun here is so intense! i think it’s because of the elevation.

so, in the interest of staying out of the sun and getting out and about, we went thrifting this weekend! there’s a couple stores that we frequent, including the humane society shop, aries thrift store, 2 big indoor flea markets, and serendipity, a really cute one. this last weekend we went to aries and serendipity. i found a cool recipe holder at aries and a totally awesome bowl at serendipity. the bowl is a popcorn/salad sized enamel bowl made in finland circa the 1970s.

we also watched ‘perfume‘ last night while munching on popcorn out of my new bowl. totally awesome movie, btw, i give it 2 thumbs up!

tomorrow is leia’s big day…she get’s her spay surgery! i’m a nervous wreck while she’s carefree and trying to assassinate jabba. we have a great vet clinic here by us with really caring vets and top notch equipment and facilities, so i am trying to calm myself. 🙂 she’s going to be one groggy pup tomorrow night!

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3 years ago, when eric and i were living in angwin, we would spend weekends going geocaching. we even let loose on the world a “travel bug”, a numbered tag attached to a toy. when another geocacher finds a travel bug, they use the number to look it up online. each travel bug has destinations that you give it, or little agendas, and you then help it on it’s quest.

well…..we made a little travel bug called kitty! her goal was to get to japan and be taken to sanrio puroland, then be trekked back home. 3 years later, she finally made it to japan! 😀 woohoo! now all she has to do is get to puroland! yay! way to go kitty!