Tackle It Tuesday~Cleaning Freenzy

Today I tackled alot of stuff. In preparation for homeschooling, I am trying to get all of the "little" stuff out of the way that will bug me, but I know I won't have time while I am homeschooling. Today I took a few before and after pictures of my tackles to share with you. :)

First I cleaned out the refrigerator. I didn't take a before picture of that, but I am telling the truth, it needed to be cleaned. ;-)

Then I cleaned Behind the Refrigerator:

Before

After:

I even had a "BIG" helper

Then I cleaned Behind the stove:

Before

After

Then I reorganized the pantry:

Before

After

You really can't tell much in the after of the pantry. It is just so small, it is hard to look orderly. But I threw away out of date items, and regrouped things to where they belong. I also mopped up sticky stuff.

There are no before and after pictures of my girls room; but I kind of did a "spring" cleaning of it. I washed the walls, and baseboards. Washed Bedding, and cleaned up some puppy spots. I have alot more to do tomorrow too. :)

Check out more Tackle It Tuesday posts at Five Minutes For Mom.

Homemade Laundry Soap

So what is this mysterious pink stuff? Both guesses, while quite good ones, were WRONG! ;-)

To save some money I tried my hand at making Homemade Laundry Soap. The Pink stuff is a Laundry soap bar found at Wal-M*art in the laundry section. It is called ZOTE. It is a huge bar of pink soap. I took it and grated it with a cheese grater and it looked like this:

The night that I grated it; the little chilren' were soundly asleep in bed. It just so happened that we had Taco Rice that night. When Bean woke up the next morning she came bursting into my room and said,

"MOMMY, MOMMY! You left the cheese out last night, and didn't put it back in the refrigerator and it turned PINK!!! You shouldn't of left it out!!!"

I explained to the girls what it was. Then Tiny Boy obviously thought it was something good to eat; otherwise he wouldn't snatched some and stuck it in his mouth. You should of seen his face as he discovered that it wasn't pink candy, LOL!

A few days later, I cooked up a batch of the Soap. If you would like to try your hand at making the soap here is the recipe that I used:

1 Bar of ZOTE soap grated

1/2 Cup of Borax

1 Cup of Arm and Hammer *WASHING* Soda (not baking soda, but *WASHING SODA* I found a box of it at Pub*lix in the laundry section. Wal-M*art didn't have it. Shocker huh?

Boil 4 Cups of water on the stove, and add in the grated ZOTE. Do a little at a time; otherwise it will clump together in one big wad. You may have to add a little more water as you cook it. It took me about 30 minutes to cook it down.

Dump the melted watery soap in a five gallon bucket. Put in Washing Soda and Borax. Stir around. Then add Five Gallons of Hot Tap Water. Stir really well. Cover with a lid, and let it set for 24 hours.

And Wallah! You have Laundry Soap!! The consistency is *not* like normal liquid laundry soap; but it works really well! I like it better than the cheap stuff that I normally buy. It is estimated that it costs $0.01 a load to wash with this soap.

Here is a picture of what it looked like when I opened it up.

And here are the little people stirring the brew. :)

I have washed about five loads of laundry with this stuff. It comes out clean, and smelling really nice. Not bad for trying to save some $$$ huh? You use 1 Cup per load of laundry.

Now for the winner. Miss Bean drew Persuaded out of the hat! Congratulations!!! I'll be contacting you for your mailing address. :)

Thanks for playing ladies! That was fun. :)

Tackle it Tuesday~The Laundry Room

My tackle for today is the laundry room. And I am on a *very* important mission. I *need* to find our tax documents. See, our "office" is also in our laundry room. Today, as my sweet, wonderful, kind, loving, and the guy who let me get the puppy, left for work, he said, "Oh, can you do me a favor?" "What?" I asked trying to sound cheerful, because I knew he was going to ask me to do the next to impossible.

"Can you look for the tax documents? I tried looking last night, but I couldn't find them." So that is what I am doing today. Hopefully, I can post a before and after picture later. Ta Ta for now! :)