Keepin' it Real

No folks, you're not looking at the latest "My home is better than yours" Home from Better Homes and Gardens.  This is what my house looks like today.  Ruby is puking from the overabundance of mucus that has accompanied her bout with "Flu B."  So I'm letting go of the house to take care of what matters most: the people in my life.

Thankfully, Ruby is napping peacefully right now, and in the time it's taken me to upload the pictures, I've gotten the kitchen cleaned up and a load of laundry started.  Nonetheless, I wanted to share a glimpse of raw, unedited "life"  Real life.

The extra snuggling time I've had today has given me time to think about just how grateful I am for my life today:  That I am married to a man who is my world, my love, my best friend, my better half.  That he works hard so that I can live my dream of staying home with our kids.  That I have been blessed twice with new souls to love and nurture here on earth.  That I have a warm home with beautiful Christmas decorations that make my heart glad.  That my family has enough clothes to make that mountain of laundry above.  That we have dishes and food and helping hands to create a dirty kitchen with.  That even on the messiest, most unproductive days I am SO ABUNDANTLY BLESSED.

Sometimes life is so messy and so beautiful all at the same time.

What I Loved About Last Week 12th & 13th Ed.

So I realize, I'm still a week behind, but no more!  I'll catch you up on the last two weeks around here. (Don't mind the highlighting, blogger is being dumb...)

Week of June 4-June 10:
1. Picked dozens of cups of snap peas and started digging up potatoes.  This new method of gardening is rocking our socks off so far.  We are digging up red potatoes that are 4 and 5 inches across.  I've never  seen red potatoes that big before.  They are also mighty tasty!

2. Celebrated 7 years of marriage to my wonderful hubby.  He surprised me with flowers and dinner out sans kids.  We ate sushi at our favorite place and took my ruby ring to get it fixed (I lost the ruby on vacation.)  We also browsed through a kitchen store and found lots of cool gizmos and gadgets.  It was a just our style of date.  Love that guy more and more with each passing year!

3. Took the kids out to harvest wheat with Grandpa Bill.  We all got to ride and eat lunch out at the field.  We took lots of pictures at Bill's request because this was apparently the best wheat they'd ever had at that particular field (and probably the best they ever will.)

4. Washed my car.  We borrowed the power washer from the farm to wash the dune buggy (it's for sale by the way, so if you know anyone...) and decided to wash my car as well.  It was a fun family project with everyone scrubbing and spraying.

5. Got new tires on the car.  One of those things that you love to hate spending money on.  I always get a dorky satisfaction from taking care of things like that though...

6. Along the dorky lines.  I got new laundry baskets and I could not be more excited.  They are red and sturdy and so much nicer than the falling apart ones that we were using from when Andy was in college.  It's the little things, really.

7. Probably the biggest news of the week (at least in Ira's books) is that he finally got all of his toys back.  Not sure if I ever shared that story on here, but about 6 weeks ago, Andy and I were so disgusted with how Ira had acted at church the last 2-3 weeks, that we took every single toy he'd ever gotten and put them away until he could behave as we thought he could at Mass.  He improved little by little each week and finally on the 10th, he was good enough to earn them back.  It was like Christmas morning at our house seeing all the long-lost toys.  I must say, I didn't really miss them much, and quite honestly, the kids didn't seem to either.  I foresee a toy-clearing-out-athon in our future (if the hubs and I can agree on what to keep and what to let go of.)

There you have it for that week, now onto this past week - June 11-17:

1. Legos.  One day during Ruby's nap, Ira and I spent some time building with his newly-returned Legos.  It was really, really cool.  I built a fire truck.  I don't think I'd ever really built anything with Legos in my life, so it was a lot of fun to share that experience with Ira.

2. Laundry.  When Ira ran out of shorts (I know, I'm a terrible mother), I finally decided it was time to do the laundry from vacation and the week following.  It was a TON of laundry, and my washer ran pretty much the entire day nonstop, but it sure felt good to get it all done!

3. "Blunk beds."  Well I thought I would just be bragging about the fact that I finally ordered bunk beds for the kids, but the company we ordered them from is awesome and after ordering them on Monday afternoon, they were delivered on Thursday afternoon (for free no less!)  Andy got them set up that same night and both kids were sleeping in them by Friday (when Ruby's mattress came in.)  The kids have done excellent in their new beds.  I think all they really needed was their own spaces, because the circus that is bed time has calmed down significantly and I think everyone is sleeping better!  If you are ever in need of bunk beds, I would highly recommend Bunk Bed King.  The service was excellent, the shipping was free, the prices were great, and the bunk beds are S.O.L.I.D.  No fake wood here.  We could not be more pleased with our purchase. (And no, I am not receiving anything for this review, just a satisfied customer.)

4. Ira has figured out how to snap (for the most part) and it is so cute because he does it whenever his hands are free (like when he's waiting for his turn in a game or when he's in between steps on building legos.)

5. Swimming.  We've been spend a lot of time at the pool lately.  I can't believe how much more confident Ira is in the water.  I also cannot believe how comfortable Ruby is with it.  She'll wear just her floaties and float around the 4-5 ft. range just kicking and splashing and having a jolly good time.  Going to the pool this summer is so much more fun than last summer when all she'd do was stay on the step!

6. Celebrated my nephew's 6th birthday.  He had a swimming party and all the kids had fun swimming and "slip & sliding"  - even Ruby!

7. Climbed a silo.  Now that was pretty awesome.  After the birthday party, Andy's parents watched our kids so that we could climb the silo at the dairy farm.  I picked the tallest one (figured if I was going to do it, I might as well do it right) and up we went.  It was kind of grueling climbing it (but that could be because I'm an out-of-shape-lame-ozoid) but boy was the view at the top worth it all!  Just amazing.  Such a fun mini-date with my hubs!

We climbed the one on the right. About 85 feet tall.

If you look real close (or click on the picture to make it bigger,) you can our town on the horizon. It's about 6 or 6.5 miles away in this picture.

And if you look real close (or click on the picture to make it bigger,) in this picture, you can see the town I grew up in on the horizon.  It's about 13.3 miles away in this picture.

Although the sunset surely would have been beautiful to watch from on top the silo, there was no way I wanted to climb down in the dark!  So this was as close as we got to a "sunset" picture. Ad n by-the-by, you can see Andy's parents' house in this picture (the two silos in the middle of the photo are theirs.)  We were going to climb them, but decided to climb the taller ones at the farm.

8. Father's Day.  The kids and I got Andy a new smoker for Father's Day (along with all the fixins - wood chips, charcoal, a cover, ribs.)  We decided to have both of our dads (and moms too of course!) down for dinner on Sunday night.  Andy smoked ribs and potatoes and we had a delicious meal together.  Ruby thought it was pretty fun having two grandmas and two grandpas in the same place.

9. Rubyism - "Ira give me my stink eye back!" (She was referring to a pirate eye patch.)

10. Iraism - "Mom, I know you want the house clean, but that won't happen until nobody lives here and they demolish it."  Thanks Ira, thanks a lot.

Hope you have a great week!!

Would you?

Would you add a cup that looked like this to the final rinse of your white load of laundry?

I did today.  And I'm pretty excited about it too!

It's bluing.  Mrs. Stewart's Liquid Bluing.  It's biodegradable and non-toxic, and I'm hoping it's the solution to my dingy whites.

About 2 months ago, we started using homemade laundry detergent (for cost reasons mainly.)  After much research, I decided to try this recipe:
1/4 bar Fels-Naptha soap
1/4 bar Ivory soap
2/3 c. washing soda
1/2 c. Borax
6 c. water, then an addition 4 c., then an additional 22 c.

At first, I thought it was leeching a LOT of color out of our clothes (like when I washed jeans, the water was DARK blue.  I had to seriously alter the way that I normally do laundry (four large loads every 10-14 days of dark delicate, dark dry, light delicate and light dry.)  With the homemade stuff, it seemed as though you had to sort very carefully so that colors didn't bleed/leech.  So I'd sworn off of using it.  Then I thought I should give it some more time.  I sorted more carefully (whites, lights, brights, darks, and dark and light delicates (which I wash in Woolite anyway.)  And in that time, I began to think that perhaps our clothes were getting clean.  It seemed like they were getting fairly clean at least.  Until the last few loads that came out feeling downright greasy. (Andy's work clothes and our bed sheets.)  Still don't know exactly what happened there.  The 2nd time I made it, I increased the soap to potentially combat the greasiness.  Used this recipe:

1/2 bar Fels-Naptha
1/2 bar Ivory soap
2/3 c. washing soda
1 c. Borax
Water, water water.

Now I think that maybe the Borax is too much (softens the water too much so that the soap isn't as effective- is there such a thing?)  So next time, I think I'll decrease the Borax.

Pretty much I have no idea what I'm doing.  I am truly a mad scientist.

But I did read that bluing would help make dingy white whiter.  And I found some when we were going through my great aunt's possessions yesterday.  So I decided to use it in my white load today.  It is currently in the dryer, but to me, the stuff that was saveable (namely things that had not gotten dingy over the course of 6 years of use like Ira's blanket or Andy's work socks - which are not six years old, but my are they grody!) does look nice and bright. 

I really would like to figure out this homemade laundry soap thing.  Because we stand to save a TON.  And it's all much better for your clothes and skin and the environment.  But I think there are a lot of variables (hard/soft water, what each ingredient does and how it interacts with the other ingredients, my affinity for packing the washing machine full and not sorting clothes all that carefully -dark dry, light dry, dark delicate, light delicate)  There are SO many variables that I just don't know much of anything about.  And I'm not having the greatest luck finding information on the internet about it.  There is a wealth of recipes for homemade laundry soap.  And there are tons of people saying how well it works and tons of people saying that it doesn't work at all.  But there's just not much about how it works.  Or troubleshooting advice.  So if you are in the know, SPEAK UP!

So I'm on the fence.  Our laundry doesn't smell bad when it's done washing.  It doesn't smell "clean" either.  It doesn't smell like anything at all really.  I just think our laundry could look cleaner.  I guess I will continue to dink with my recipe.  I'll use the bluing every once in awhile.  And I'll keep trolling the interwebs for solutions. 

Catching up!

So it's been 2 weeks. Sorry - I was doing good for awhile, then the thought of loading State Fair pictures on here overwhelmed me. I'm not really sure why, beings there's only a few pictures, but whatever. I think I'll stop "previewing" my next blog at the end of my blogs. There's just less pressure that way. Now that we're clear on that, I'm stealing the idea from a friend to update you through pictures that I've taken since my last blog.

So technically this was before the last blog, but whatever, it's from September 8th - right after I started using the new needles. I'm 13w2d in this pic.

Ira with the Verizon car at the state fair.

The thrill of the century for Ira. He got to ride on the train at the fair! He'll probably still be talking about it next year!

The other really cool thing that Ira got to do at the fair. The bungee-trampoliney-bouncy thing. He really liked that too!

Our "before" front lawn picture. It actually doesn't look that bad in the picture, but it's Bermuda grass (really it's mainly weeds) and it won't grow in the shade (which our yard has a lot of) So we were planning on re-seeding it with Fescue at some point. Well, at the new building that Andy is starting, they were going to have to dig through a bunch of Fescue for the building pad, so Andy, being the resourceful guy that he is, checked with his boss to see if it was okay for us to take the Fescue out as sod instead. He said it was fine, so Andy rented a sod-cutter and spent the better part of a weekend with his dad cutting and installing sod.

Here's the new grass. It covered a good 1800 sq ft. probably. And the best part was - it was free! Because of the cost of sod usually, we will definitely be seeding the rest of the lawn, but this gave us a good start!

I'm not really sure what it is about my sister and I that makes us such laundry detergent freaks, but it seems like we are both constantly trying out new detergents. As we've both said before, our laundry cabinets look like the detergent aisle at the store. So my latest experiment was with "Cheer Bright Clean" I tell you what, I'm impressed! The sock on the left was washed in it. The sock on the right was washed in "Arm & Hammer" powder with Borax added as a booster. I can't believe how well the cheer worked. I've started using it on all our stuff now. I think it's less harsh than the "Arm & Hammer" but still gets stuff really clean and gets the stinkies out too.

My parents ran a half-marathon on Sunday the 20th. I can't tell you how proud I am of both of them. I only run when I'm being chased.

Ira and I made Play-Doh people the other day. They didn't last very long because he tried to actually play with them.

Andy and Ira (and our neighbor) rode the Dune Buggy in the Fall Fest parade on Saturday. From Andy's telling, apparently Ira said "Dad, I don't want to ride in the parade" just about the entire time. He didn't mind so much after it was over and he realized that Mom and Grandma and Grandpa had caught a whole bunch of candy for him.

My stomach today (at 16w 1d). The new needles are SO much better. I don't know what happened with that bruise on the right - I think I must've hit scar tissue or something. It takes a LONG time for the bruises to heal (as you can see by the ones in the middle that are like 2 months old), but I've been told that they do eventually heal all the way and you're left with no sign of doing the shots. We'll see, I guess!

Kinda sorta starting to show. I never got very big with Ira, but I'm hoping I'll show more this time. I love how pregnant women look!

Laundry Day

I finally got around to doing laundry today! Hooray!! I think I'm going to love having main floor laundry. That is, if we can get the wash machine to stop leaking. It leaked a whole bunch on Friday when I was doing my first load in it since we moved, but Andy replaced the clamp on the drain hose and it had been working fine. On the second load today though I noticed that the paper towel that he put under the drain hose (so we could spot a leak) was wet. There wasn't much water on the floor, but there was some. I tightened the screw on the drain hose clamp a little more and have another load in there now. We'll see how that goes...

I got a new laundry cart for doing laundry. I used to just sort my laundry all over the floor (because our old laundry room was in the basement.) This thing is so cool though, it's got 4 compartments and I think I'm just going to keep it in my closet then roll it out to the laundry room whenever I feel like doing laundry. The 4 compartments each come out too so I could just carry one load out at a time if I wanted to. Here's a picture. I got it at Wal-Mart for like 30 bucks I think.
I was also excited to find out today that our car insurance will be $60 less (per 6 month period) because of moving out of the huge metropolis! Hooray!

That's about all I know for now. Ira is back to napping regularly and without much of a fuss. I think he really did just need to get settled into our new house. Take care and God bless!

P.S. The load in the wash is done and no leaks!!