Truth

I found this recently. I've been avoiding this blog recently, one that I frequent often for her mommy wit and advice, and her overseas travel stories.  She and I discovered our pregnancies at the same time and I knew she would be blogging a lot about it, so I avoided it like the plague.  I dared to venture to her page this week and I was shocked when I read her most recent post. It was like ripping off the bandaide on an old wound, bringing anger and tears at the same time, but it was a MUST read for me. My heart needed it, and it was beautiful. I won’t spoil it or try to under explain it here, but it is well worth the time to read.
http://adrielbooker.com/dear-pregnant-woman-from-a-baby-loss-mom/

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I’m not an overly obsessed pinner on Pinterest, but I am a major DIY’er. If I can do it myself, I prefer to.  So when I saw the dozens hundreds of DIY laundry soaps and baby wipes being pinned, I was intrigued.  At first I thought it would be more of a hassle than it would be worth, until I found a mom blogger who had put them both to the test to see her savings over the course of a year.  By replacing these two items with homemade versions she claimed to have saved $600 a year! Now granted she has 6 children in a household of 8, and we are only a family of three, but still I wanted to give it a shot.

I mean $600 is one mortgage payment.
$600 is one large vacation, or three mini weekend get-aways.
$600 is eight weeks of groceries in our house.
$600 is 15 tanks of gas in my car.
$600 is one year of paid satellite television.

Even if in our small household we only save a portion of that, we would still see the savings over time. So ten minutes of mixing time seemed well worth it. We decided to only do the laundry detergent for now, as we are almost done (fingers crossed) with baby wipes for now.  When we have more children we will try to do both.

I thought I would share my recipe even though it is not the most original I’m sure. I saw many recipes on Pinterest that I liked and decided to mix several different ones for my own.

A few reasons for my choice ingredients:

• *We used Zote soap instead of Fels-Naptha for two reasons.  Zote is plant derived so it’s environmentally safe, whereas Fels-Naptha is not and is strongly discouraged if you have a septic take (even though we do not) because it kills the good bacteria inside them causing back-ups over time. Fels-Naptha is also harmful if it gets in your eyes or ingested by mouth whereas Zote soap is not. Because of this we went with the Zote soap which has a whitening agent in it but does not have as much stain/grease fighter in it. For that reason we added the Oxi-Clean which replaced the need for Fels-Naptha. If we had not used the Oxi-Clean we would have used a small amount of Fels-Naptha instead, but in smaller amounts mixed with the Zote soap.

• *We used a mix of Washing Soda and Baking Soda as everything I read said that Washing Soda was so acidic and with such a high PH balance that the Baking Soda was needed to re-balance the load as to make sure the fabrics did not cause skin irritation. So we used equal amounts of each in our mix.

• *I wanted to use a booster in our mix, like the Oxi-Clean, but as I looked for others besides Oxi-Clean I found most were scented.  Purex Crystals were my first choice as a stain booster but since they are scented, I bypassed them for the Oxi-Clean because of the sensitive skins in our house. If it were not for the sensitive skins I may have chosen a scented booster and powdered softener, but the Zote soap does give a good clean scent.

My advice is to customize your recipe for your households needs and then test out different versions to see what is right for your crew, but our version is below. We loved the results and the laundry smells and feel just as soft and good as our normal All Free and Clear detergent.

We average with our costs per ingredient, that the total cost for one batch (which does 256 loads) is between $9.80-$12.90 for the one batch of almost 2 gallons.  The price varies only due to generic or name brand ingredients and if you remove the extra option for the Oxi-Clean or not. This averages out to $0.03-.05 per load!   Our normal liquid detergent (All Free and Clear) is $4.00 at 33 loads which is $0.12 a load. Since I tend to use the liquid more freely and get only 22 loads from the bottle (I always use the large load amount) I would be spending $0.18 per load.

To switch to homemade is a saving on average of 9 - 15 cents a load!

Let me break that down further for you.
Say I do 6 loads of laundry a week for a year.
That’s 312 loads a year.
Homemade would cost me $9.36-$15.60 a year, and store bought would cost me $37.44-$56.16 a year.
A possible savings average of $46.83 a year!

Now I know what you are thinking--that’s not $600 a year! It’s true it isn’t, but remember how I said that mom blogger had six kids? Two of those children were babies in diapers….washable cloth diapers. Also, the $600 was baby wipes and laundry detergent combined. So I can easily see how, over time with a large family, you would save more money with these homemade versions than our smaller family will. Still to me it’s a small save and a fun new DIY to try. So, now for that recipe.

Homemade Laundry Soap

*1 Bar Zote Soap  (or 3 bars Fels-Naptha Soap bars, or use one of each)

*1 3lb 7oz box Washing Soda (We couldn’t find the 4lb boxes-just make sure it’s even with the Baking Soda.)

*1 3lb 7oz box Baking Soda (or 3-4x 1lb boxes if you cannot find the larger box)

*1 box of 20 Mule-Team Borax (You will only use an equal amount to match the sodas so if you’re using 3lbs of each soda use only 3lbs of Borax. If you can find the 4lb boxes of the sodas use the whole 4lb box of Borax. Since we used about 3lbs of each soda we used ¾ of the 4lb box of Borax for ours.)

*½ of a 2lb tub of Oxi-Clean

Dump all of the above in a large container and seal. The bars of soap (Zote/Fels-Naptha) will have to be grated with a cheese grater into small shreds, and then everything should be well stirred. Just like most powders you need to add the detergent mix in the water before the laundry is put in, and if you have an HE washer it’s advised that you dissolve it in a cup of hot water first and then pour it into the washer.

Happy Washing!

The Difference Between Joy and Happiness

The past few months have been a huge roller-coaster in our house. The coaster departed the station the moment we decided to pursue expanding our family of three into a family of four, and after two dive drops (miscarriages), the ride ended back where we started. Some days, it is so easy to think the ride was “all for not”, but the rides twists and turns definitely taught me so much about motherhood, my hearts desires, our family dreams, and ultimately the biggest thing: the difference between Joy and Happiness.

A few days after our first “dive drop”, I drove through the Starbucks window on my way into work with my puffy under eyes subbing in for my usual makeup.  I was in no mood to talk to anyone but I was holding it together.  Now, I would never admit this to my husband, but let’s just say at least half of the Starbucks baristas may or may not know me by name….and drink order….just maybe.

Anyway.
It only took a minute for my barista friend to hand me my Frappuccino, but her words have stuck with me for weeks since then.  She paused with my receipt and stuck her head out the drive through window, “Is everything okay? You’re usually one of the most joyful people through my window at 6 a.m.” She waited for me to respond by I just shook my head. “Well, you just look like you’ve lost your joy,” she finished and with an apologetic smile she retreated back inside the window.  I sat there for a few moments but no words came, so I forced a smile back at her, which must have looked strained, and then just drove away.  I wasn’t ready for the questions, and I had not prepared myself with a reply.

It took weeks and another “dive drop” for me to realize something—there is a difference between losing your joy and losing your happiness because there’s a big difference in joy and happiness.

Your happiness moves and changes with each event or change in life, but your joy cannot be shaken when it is rooted in Christ. As a Christian your Joy is unwavering.  Let me explain.

The definition for Happiness is: the state of being happy or satisfied.
The definition for Joy is: great delight or a feeling of great pleasure and happiness or rejoicing.

Joy is a fruit of the spirit. Gal. 5:22 –“..but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience…”
Happiness is not.
Joy is strength in the Lord. Neh. 8:10 –“…do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Happiness is not.
Joy always comes with the morning. Ps. 30:5 “One may experience sorrow during the night, but joy arrives in the morning.”
Happiness does not.
You still have your Joy even in times of sorry when the happiness is gone.
Joy is happiness but happiness isn’t Joy.

When your Joy is found in Christ it cannot be lost, it cannot be easily wavered, it cannot be stolen even when your present happiness can be.  I hope when people see me, even in my days of sorrow, they see that I do indeed still have my Joy. After all when I look at these definitions, I want to be more than just satisfied, I want to have the joy.

So I guess you could say Starbucks fed more than my caffeine addiction that day! Kidding…but even though I didn’t learn this until after my conversation with the barista, I am glad I have realized it now, and next time my answer will be ready.

Fun fact: Joy is mentioned in the bible around 189 times; happiness is only mentioned 20 times.