Crystal Paine of Money Saving Mom published my “we paid cash for our SUV story” on her site yesterday, so I expect some of her readers to click over to see what Natural Moms Talk Radio is all about.

Hi y’all!

I’m also a big fan of Crystal’s site and book. I enjoy MSM not so much for the deal postings, which I rarely read, but for the inspirational stories – that of Crystal herself as well as others.

Here are a few of my favorite posts on frugality that have appeared here through the years:

• My review of Laura Vanderkam’s wonderful book, All The Money in the World
• How to host a swap meet to trade great stuff with your friends
• Top 10 reasons to do Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University
• A review of the 1970′s classic sustainable living book Possum Living
• How to deal with a falling income
• How to homeschool cheaply
• Cheap eats – frugal recipes featuring potatoes, rice, and beans
• How I got out of debt
• Lowering your grocery budget without compromising health
• Frugal baby raising tips
• Money and the natural mom

I hope you’ll stick around and see what else I’m about. Please leave a comment below and say Hi!

For the first 5 months of my pregnancies, everything seems to slide. Can you relate? Then, I spend the next few months in a frenzy of cleaning, decluttering, nesting… with a big baby belly to haul around in the heat of summer. Ah, well. They’re worth it.

I’ve been following Simple Mom’s Project Simplify posts and even though I’ve been doing some small decluttering/cleaning projects of my own, I haven’t blogged about it. Until today. Because even though I write about scheduling weekly and monthly cleaning tasks, simplifying and minimalism… that doesn’t mean I’m perfect. 

This week the hot spot of choice for Project Simplify was”choose your own adventure”. Yesterday I decided that the hall closet MUST be dealt with. This is the closet where I store my shoes and the 11 year old’s “Sunday” clothing (his room doesn’t have a closet), as well as homeschooling/art supplies we’re not currently using. (I buy school supplies on clearance once a year.)

But for months it’s become a general dumping ground for anything miscellaneous. There was a box of gender neutral newborn clothing, a suitcase, outgrown Ruby clothing, a bag of disposable diapers (gift for a friend’s upcoming baby shower), etc. Yuck.

After about 25 minutes of pulling everything out and putting stuff away and sweeping, it looked like this.

Top: In the basket are my Sleepy Wrap and Baby Hawk baby carriers, that’s an Ergo in the box, and on the right are homeschooling books and a box of crayons and art supplies. Look how empty the closet looks!
Bottom: I removed all the shoes that are ridiculous to wear while pregnant either because they’re too tight or high heels. (I don’t know about you, but I think pregnant women look ridiculous teetering around in heels.) I can actually see my shoes now!

Ah. Much better.

When you’re a mom of young kids, much of your housecleaning time involves putting out fires.

Today so far I’ve:

• Wiped up 3 water or milk spills courtesy of toddler
• Picked up strewn books, toys, etc off floor
• Changed toddler outfit twice
• Wiped purple marker off the hardwood floors
• Cleaned up lotion that toddler squeezed all over the floor and herself
• Tried, unsuccessfully, to scrub Sharpie marker artwork off my white antique desk (there goes that toddler again!)

Of course, I also did several actual regular cleaning tasks such as:

• Cleaned the kitchen (unloaded/loaded dishwasher, wiped counters multiple times)
• Took out trash – twice
• Vacuumed living room
• Cleaned the table
• Stripped bed linens

You see how, with all of these little cleaning tasks going on, it’s difficult to get to the important weekly and monthly cleaning chores?

The thing about these particular jobs is that they are what make a home actually smell and look clean. If you have a few toys scattered about your living room but your windows are clean and the baseboards not dingy, the room still looks nice.

The challenge is to figure out how to actually GET those monthly and weekly tasks accomplished.

I often lament to my husband that I spend too much time picking up general detritus left about the central living areas. By the time I’m done with that, I’m too tired or busy to do the important cleaning tasks. It’s not an unwillingness, it’s just a lack of time and womanpower.

Also, I find that completing the bigger cleaning tasks actually make me feel far more productive and happy.

By contrast, niggley jobs (like picking up people’s junk left about) makes me extremely grumpy.

Hopefully, no longer. I realized I needed a system. So I grabbed pencil and paper and walked from room to room.

I made a list of all the cleaning tasks that need to be done in my home.

I didn’t include daily pick up tasks like cleaning the kitchen and such. This was just for weekly and monthly items. Stuff like cleaning the kitchen cabinet fronts, sanitizing the trash cans, and wiping the baseboards.

Then I decided whether the particular chore needed to be done weekly or monthly.

Living in a large family means that some jobs that are weekly to some families (like vacuuming and mopping and cleaning bathrooms) are done daily or every other day. By the same token, some things that are done weekly in many homes (dusting) just aren’t a priority to me, so that’s a monthly thing!

Turns out there were fewer than 30 weekly/monthly cleaning chores in all. Sounds like one a day, doesn’t it?

I printed out a calendar where each day has one weekly/monthly cleaning task assigned to it.

I even get two days off if the month has 31 days.

It was a bit tricky, because I had to remember to schedule the weekly tasks… well, weekly. They had to repeat. But the monthly jobs only show up on the calendar once each month. Most of these chores only take from 10-20 minutes. When I’ve finished, I strike it off of my list.

I also ask for help. Sadie, 6, in particular loves to attack a cleaning job with me. (Now getting her to clean her room is another matter entirely!) The other day when the chore was to scrub the bathroom floors with Oxi-Clean, she spotted me on hands and knees with the scrub brush and asked if she could do it instead. She did a great job.

How’s it working so far?

Actually, pretty good. I’m still feeling rotten some days and I’ll admit that many days I just skip it. But that’s ok. When I’m back to my old self I know I won’t have a problem getting these things all checked off.

Having the calendar gives me peace of mind. Leaving it up to chance means that things don’t get done as much and I feel, oddly, more overwhelmed. Having a PLAN feels great and puts me back in control.

How do you work out doing those weekly and monthly cleaning chores?

If it would be helpful, you can download my calendar here.

Teaching Your Kids To Clean Up In The Bathroom

As a mother and as a person, I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining a clean and welcoming bathroom. Thanks to indoor plumbing and all the trappings of modernity, the experience of showering, washing your hands, or doing your business is a far more pleasant one than at any other point in human history. But we set our standards relative to our experiences – not to what we read in a textbook – meaning that a dirty bathroom will always be highly unappealing. The fact that it has running water does little to placate the issue.

Really, bathroom cleanliness should be a simple affair: leave it how you found it. Don’t make it painfully clear that you were there.

photo credit: BobPetUK

This is obviously far easier said than done. In reality, there are two main factors that explain why it’s so easy for a bathroom to get dirty:

1. By its very nature, the bathroom is a place where water, hair, and dirt all mix. Add in the fact that we’re far more likely to get grossed out by an unclean bathroom than, say, pantry or mudroom, and it’s understandable that the place gets messy – and, when it does, that we immediately recognize this.

2. Cleaning the bathroom requires individual responsibility. My children do chores and help around the house in a variety of capacities, but ultimately I will insure that the kitchen or living room is clean if they don’t take proper initiative. But the mess made in a bathroom is made by an individual outside of the communal family setting. Therefore each person needs to do their part to leave it just as clean as they found it.

So how am I teaching my kids to be more responsible with their bathroom cleaning? My approach isn’t groundbreaking, but I’ve found it to be effective. Here’s what I do:

-Provide constant reminders. I don’t consider myself a nudge and I don’t care to push the issue, but if the bathroom is unclean, I won’t hesitate to remind my children that they have a responsibility to ensure otherwise.

-Make the medicine closet a “catch-all.” I can’t stand when toothpaste, floss, tweezers, and my jar of lavender essential oil are all sitting out on the sink countertop and cluttering the bathroom. To make sure that this doesn’t happen and that things get put away, I tell my children that the medicine closet is their one-stop-shop for bathroom cleanup. Anything that they use – or anything that they find sitting out – can simply be put on any shelf in that closet. It doesn’t matter where so long as it’s not next to the sink.

-Keep water in the tub. Bathrooms can get disgusting quickly when people start spreading water into all recesses of the room. So my house has a simple rule to counter this issue: after a shower or a bath, we all dry ourselves off in the tub before stepping out onto the bathroom mat. This ensures that most of the water goes where it’s supposed to go – into the drain.

-Incorporate hair removal into the bathroom process. Nobody in my family enjoys finding hair in the sink or shower drain, so it wasn’t difficult to teach my children to remove any hair as part of their regular bathroom routine. After showering, pick hair out of the drain before drying off. After combing hair in front of the mirror, wipe away any hair before putting the comb away.

These are a few tips that my family and I follow in an effort to keep the bathroom clean. Teaching children clean bathroom skills can be a difficult proposition, especially since it’s one of the few places in the house where they do their business unsupervised. But teaching them the importance of such cleanliness will stay with them for the rest of their life. They might as well start learning now.

I’ve read many “Day in the Life” posts over the years as a blogger, but never did one until now, when SimpleHomeschool.net invited readers to share their day and link up to their Friday post. I’m so glad I did this! I learned a lot about myself. I’ll share what I mean tomorrow.

5:13 AM: My stomach, ignoring the protests of the rest of my body, decides sleep time is over. I get up and reheat a bowl of last night’s chili. I contemplate going back to bed for a bit, but since pregnancy nausea has set in, I’ve been sleeping later and I miss my morning routine. So I decide to stay up.

I grab the computer and place our farm order, which hubby will pick up tomorrow. 3 gallons of raw milk, 4 dozen eggs, and a bag of grass fed beef bones for broth. I read an email and learn what baby’s doing now at 14 weeks, officially my second trimester.

I hear Sadie, 6, get up and go to the bathroom. She leaves the bathroom light on, wide open, as usual. Ugh. It shines right into my bedroom and hits my eyes when I’m in bed. Reminding her to turn it off won’t do any good because she probably wants the light on so she can see back to her room easily. I decide to buy her a small flashlight to keep by her bed to solve this problem. She slept badly last night, and woke me up twice. I think it’s because she ate wheat Sunday. Every few months I let her try a bit to see if there’s a reaction, and there always is.

There’s a lot I need to do on the computer, but I shut it down because I’m feeling nauseous. Screens have that effect on me when I’m pregnant, which is really inconvenient when you’re a blogger.

I take a bath, get dressed, start water boiling.

6:45: Julien and Sadie wake up and come sit with me on the sofa. I hear toddler feet padding down the hallway and cries of “Mama” from the youngest, her Daddy just behind her. They’re not usually up for another hour. I must have made too much noise. I nurse Ruby and snuggle with Sadie. I say a prayer and ask for help with patience… not something I usually struggle with, but pregnancy hormones and nausea are making my fuse way too short lately.

I eat another small bowl of chili. I’m hungry all the time now.

Tea time. Julien, our resident tea maker, steeps a cup of Tasha Tudor’s Welsh breakfast tea for me. We drink this tea every day.  I write “Tasha Tudor” in my notebook and decide it would be fun to spend a day with the kids studying her life and works. She was a remarkable woman who lived life squarely on her terms and she’s fascinating to me.

Ruby hands me a Berenstain Bears book and says, “Read it“. I do, but it looks more like her turning pages to the objects she recognizes, so she can point and name them. “Baby, owl, bunny, eggs, puppy”, etc, which is frustrating to Sadie, who actually wants to hear the story.

7:20: I cook *Breakfast in a Bowl for the early risers. The later crew of big kids  can cook some more eggs to eat with the remaining grits when they awake. Ruby seems frantic for the sausages to be done, and eventually grabs my fork from my hand and feeds herself, then asks for “Mo“. I take this as a sign my milk supply is dropping. While we eat breakfast, we see the sunrise out the window.

(* Grits cooked with a ton of butter and cheese heaped in a bowl with fried egg and sausage.)

I get up to get Ruby and myself more food and realize it’s normal to be hungry when your body is nourishing 3 people. “Pee!”. I look behind me and Ruby is standing in a puddle. I had just put a clean diaper on her but the leg elastic is a bit stretched out on her Fuzzi Bunz and her toddler bladder holds a lot. I take off her pants and diaper and clean up the mess. Good thing Ilana will be mopping later. Yes, we will be potty training come Spring.

While I’m away from the table Julien reads this post in progress and laughs. I explain what a “day in the life” post is about. He says that I need to “make a book”. Ruby goes in the sink for a quick bath. Meanwhile I unload the dishwasher.

7:46: Hubby’s up, so I fry more sausages and eggs, then put on a little makeup. I ask Sadie not to play guitar while people are sleeping. A sleepy teenaged boy emerges from his bed and sits down at the piano to practice a new piece. I don’t tell him to be quiet. Now the big girls are up and eating breakfast. Ruby asks me to put her Raffi tape in the CD player. We discuss the origins of the song “Kumbayah”.

8:05: I check the calendar in my notebook that tells me what “monthly” cleaning task I’m working on today. It’s cleaning the outside of the fridge, stove and dishwasher. I decide to enlist Sadie’s help. I feel pukey, so I make myself a Perrier with lemon. I get a package together to ship, something I sold on Amazon.com. I don’t have a large envelope, but thankfully Julien, the eBay entrepreneur, does. My tape isn’t where it’s supposed to be on my desk. I holler to ask if anyone has it, and a child retrieves it for me.

8:20: Hubby kisses me goodbye, in a rush and looking stressed. Zoe is out the door to catch the school bus. I clean breakfast mess off the table then wipe the grits Ruby dropped attempting to feed herself off the floor.

Someone has given Ruby a bowl of shredded cheese. She eats half, the remainder is all over the floor. I attempt to brush my teeth, but before I’m through painful gagging ensues. I make a mental note to floss later. Meanwhile the girls have followed me into the bathroom and begin peppering me with questions. I use a tiny screwdriver to unlock the door to Sadie’s room which has mysteriously gotten locked for the umpteenth time this week. I announce 5 Minutes to Bible Reading.

8:45: Everyone is fed, dressed and has teeth brushed. Our homeschool day begins.

We sit down to read the Bible first. This is probably my favorite time of day, and the kids really enjoy it too. Today we take turns reading Joshua 5-7. We discuss it afterwards. Then we spend a few minutes looking up some of the places mentioned on a detailed map of the Promised Land. The baby runs around the living room playing with her doll, rummaging through books and alternately sitting in my lap.

When we’re done Caleb immediately starts on Math without assistance or prompting from me. He’s in the young Scholar phase for sure. I send Julien and Ilana to do their chores (Julien sweeps the dining/living room and Ilana sweeps and mops the kitchen) while I read two Bible stories to Sadie that correspond to the reading: one is about the fall of Jericho, the other about Achan’s thievery. She is distractable and squirrelly today. I point to words and have her read them. She gets the word right about 25% of the time.

We’re interrupted by a poopy diaper. I get up to clean up Ruby, then pass her off to Julien to put the new diaper on while I finish reading and discussing the stories with Sadie.

I notice that Ilana has begun reading Dave Ramsey’s book Financial Peace Revisited. She just finished Chapter One. I told her yesterday that for math this week instead of doing our usual thing (Saxon for her), we were going to talk about money and personal finance. It’s interesting that she took it upon herself to pick up this book and read it. Caleb did the same thing several months ago, and completed the book in a few days. It’s very important to me that my children learn sound financial principles (and it’s clear my brainwashing is working) so this makes me very happy!

9: 30: Julien goes outside for a bit for some fresh air and takes Ruby with him. I take the opportunity to clean up the kitchen. I usually have it done up by now, because I find that I enjoy doing school far more when it’s clean.

Ilana brings me a science project she’s working on: she and Julien decided to sprout a bean and chart the progress over a week’s time. Sadie gets excited about this and decides to make one of her own, Ilana helps her set it up.

While I clean, I discuss dinner plans with Caleb. He wants to cook lasagne which wasn’t in my meal plan, so I don’t have the ingredients – but how can I say no to him cooking that? I didn’t want to leave the house today, but decide to swing by the store to pick up the couple of things we need. I can send Caleb in while I stay in the car with everyone else. I look up my favorite slow cooker lasagne recipe. Caleb tells me that Nannie says he needs to start a compost pile for our garden (we had one, but abandoned it because our garden was a colossal flop). He goes downstairs to find a bucket, brings it up to the kitchen and dumps old tea leaves in it. I’m determined to find a local gardener who can mentor us this year. A friend comes to mind.

Sadie wants to write a letter to her friend. I help her spell the words she doesn’t know.

The trip to the store doesn’t take long. When we get home Julien, Caleb and I start on the lasagne. I cook rice and leftover chili for lunch. Sadie decides to eat her rice with chopsticks.

11:40: Ruby has nursed to sleep, so it’s time for Read Aloud with the middle kids. We’re reading The Boxcar Children, which we started yesterday. We’re already halfway through the book because they kept asking for “One more chapter!“. While we read, Caleb does Rosetta Stone Spanish. Then he looks up YouTube videos to learn the fingering for new songs he wants to play on piano.When he’s done, he picks up his current read, a 700+ page Sherlock Holmes collection. He bought the book Sunday night, but it looks like he’ll finish it this week.

12:13: Sadie skips off to play in her room, so I decide to take a 20 minute nap with the baby. I let Ilana play on the computer for a bit. Julien is working on eBay stuff.

1:18: Ok, so maybe my nap was a bit longer than 20 minutes. The nausea has been unrelenting all day, and I’m fighting grumpiness. Besides, I have this sweet snugglebunny.

I get up, and remember the monthly task I need to do. I ask Sadie to come to the kitchen and hand her a cleaning cloth and a spray bottle of vinegar/water. We clean the front of the stove, fridge and dishwasher. It only takes a couple of minutes. The kitchen is a disaster again, but I don’t say a word. I’m happy the kids like to cook, so I’m ok with the “clean as you go” lesson taking a bit longer. Julien is at the sink washing a saucepan so he can hard boil eggs.

1: 50: History. I sit with Ilana and Julien and we read about Charles the Hammer. Caleb is working through the Story of the World: The Middle Ages too, but he’s way ahead of us and uses a different workbook to test himself after his reading. Where is Caleb by the way? I hear the dryer door slam and realize he’s downstairs doing his chore: laundry.

2:13:  “Pee. Poop.” Pick up the baby and change her diaper, then head into the bathroom to wash my hands. I brush my teeth again, remembering to stop when I get that tickle in my throat, before gagging begins. I empty the bathroom trash can, then take two bags of kitchen trash to the curb.

It’s warm out, so Ruby comes with me. She begins climbing into the stroller. “Walk!” This surprises me, since for the last couple of months she has been protesting the stroller and the sling, meaning I’ve had to either let her walk and meander alongside, or hold her. I take advantage of the situation, tell Sadie to get her shoes on, and start walking around the neighborhood. Ruby points out everything she knows. “Bird. Doggie. Choo-choo train. Flower.” Then, “Out.” Ah. There it is. I am already huffing and puffing so I encourage her to stay in until we get home. She goes back to humming and singing. Sadie chatters happily. I give myself permission to feel proud of exercising despite feeling like warmed up dog poop.

3:04: Caleb is back upstairs, updates me on the laundry situation, and sits down at the piano again. Julien plays with LEGO behind me, he is building a safe complete with a combination lock. Sadie is outside digging holes. Ilana is playing a pointless computer game in which she has to do “Chef” tasks like shred cheese. I consider telling her that there is real cheese in the kitchen she can shred, but think better of it. We don’t have TV, cable, or Nintendo, so a little brain candy in the form of computer games isn’t a hill I want to die on.

Note The Shirt. It says, Eat. Sleep. Lego.

I grab Ruby and head back outside to play with Sadie, who is digging up earthworms. She asks me again what they do for the garden, and I explain. I suddenly feel happy with my life, to be here with my children, and say a little prayer expressing gratitude for the mild weather. My body is craving Spring about as much as it’s craving steak. I remember to take my shoes off so my feet can connect with the earth.

 3:35: Caleb brings up a load of clean cloth diapers, then reads a Potty book to Ruby. She Ruby brings me another book and says, “Couch!”. I sit down and we “read”. I try to muster the energy to attack the kitchen mess before Zoe gets home. It’s her chore, but I hate for her to come home from school to such a mess. Caleb is deep into Sherlock Holmes again. Ilana asks me to read another chapter of the Boxcar Children. I read 2. I successfully procrastinate the kitchen cleanup.

I go back outside with Sadie, who is desperate to do something in the garden. I tell her she can put dead leaves on the garden area so she begins picking up armfuls and spreading them around.

4:10: Did somebody mention steak? I’m starving, so I reheat the rice from lunch and stir fry some steak with ginger, soy sauce, vinegar to eat. I begin to smell the lasagne cooking in the slow cooker. It’s bubbling over and dripping all down the counter and drawers underneath. Caleb puts it on top of a large plate to catch the mess.

A fight commences, only the second skirmish of the day, so I feel fortunate. Ilana has taken a necklace from the floor, but it belongs to Julien, who demands it back. She can’t find it. They get animated, and the baby starts screaming at them. I ask Ilana if she wants to be like Achan, who took things that didn’t belong to him. She replies no. I ask her to sweep the living room. Incidentally the exact scenario played out earlier, only the perp was Sadie, who took a toy from Ilana’s room. I was thankful to be able to use that story.

4:50: Caleb walks in the door from the bus stop where he has picked up Zoe, who is finally home from school. I find it disturbing that a child in public school is gone from her family for this many hours a day. I’m glad I got the kitchen cleaned up. I call Julien over and read a couple of chapters of James and the Giant Peach, the current read-aloud I’m sharing with just him (although Ilana joins in). He’s not as much of an avid reader as my other kids, but he loves to be read to, so I single him out for this.

5:15: Hubby walks in. He tells me immediately about a conversation he had with a potential landlord. We were interested in a home with 5 bedrooms in the area, and I contacted the man through Craigslist. He asked how many children we had. When Zeke answered truthfully, he laughed and said, “That’s not going to work.” Large family discrimination is very real folks. Nevermind that in the 2 years we’ve rented from our current landlord, we’ve never been late on rent. Nevermind that we were prepared to pay a security deposit and first month’s rent. 6 kids are the proverbial turd in the punch bowl. It occurs to me that if I were a litigious person, I could contact a lawyer to sue him for discrimination. I think about emailing the jerk, but decide he isn’t worth my time. Besides, I prayed hard about this situation and asked that if it had His blessing, it would be effortless. Obviously it’s not meant to be.

The noise from dinner is getting to me a little, and I’m feeling gross. I send the kids downstairs to play so Zeke and I can have some quiet to talk. He rocks Ruby and sings to her, a song he made up.  He announces to the kids that it’s 5 Minutes to Family Worship.

6:25: Family Worship. We read a few passages from 1 Samuel and discuss how God chose David. That he judges people not based on their appearance, but on their qualities. Caleb answers a question he was assigned to look up in his personal study. Sadie is getting tired so she’s a little wiggly.

7:00: The kids go back downstairs to play. Zeke holds my hand on the sofa and we commence one of our favorite activities, watching Ruby’s antics. She keeps picking up Julien’s foot and wrinkling her nose. I must look terrible, because Zeke keeps asking me if he can get me something to help. “Beer“, I reply. “I don’t have any. Do you want me to pick some non-alcoholic brew up for you?” “No“. I know he’s tired, and I don’t want him to have to leave the house. The only time I crave beer is when I’m pregnant.

7:18: The nausea has been getting progressively stronger and I can’t deal with it anymore. I head to my room to lie in the dark. (I ended up falling asleep and waking up at 12:00 to eat a snack. Meanwhile, hubby put everyone to bed!)

I love to challenge myself to make things myself instead of buying them.

Sometimes, the motivation is financial. Homemade stuff is almost always cheaper. Sometimes, it’s the healthier, more natural option. And all of the time, the homemade version is more environmentally friendly.

I’ve been unhappy with the green dishwashing liquids I’ve tried. Most of them are very expensive. Even with sales and coupons, you can expect to pay over $2 for a bottle of the stuff. And it’s not terribly effective.

Another option for dishwashing liquid is diluted castille soap, but even if I bought Dr. Bronner’s soap by the gallon, the price would be around .35 an ounce, comparable to store bought.

Then I came across this recipe for homemade dishwashing liquid on Annienygma’s site. I thoroughly enjoy her blog because of her “Possum Living” lifestyle. I decided to give it a shot.

All you need are:

- Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
- Octagon soap
- Water
- Cute assistant (optional)

I always keep Washing Soda on hand because I use it in my homemade laundry detergent recipe.  Turns out a local grocery store was going out of business, so I swung by and bought 15 bars of Octagon soap at a discount. They were around .50 each.

I had never used Octagon before, but I remember my Grandmother always had it around her house. It has a very mild fragrance and the finished product wasn’t perfumey at all (my main gripe with commercially available dishwashing liquid, the smell of all of them makes me sick). You could easily add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to pretty up the fragrance.

The recipe called for a half bar of grated Octagon soap and just 1 Tablespoon Washing Powder.  I cut the recipe in half, which means that the half gallon of dishwashing liquid I made cost me less than .20.

Most definitely a frugal choice. I poured the finished soap into a pretty soap dispenser next to my sink using a small funnel.

But how does it work?

We’ve been using it for the dishes we hand wash (pots and pans, items that aren’t dishwasher safe) and it works awesome! However, it makes ZERO lather. This might be an issue for some, but it doesn’t matter to me. I know that “lather” doesn’t have anything to do with how clean something is. Lather comes from Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, an ingredient I avoid in cleaning products.

I imagine this recipe would also make an awesome laundry stain treatment since that’s traditionally one of the uses of Octagon soap. I plan on keeping a squeeze bottle of it in the laundry room to put a bit directly on stains before washing clothes.

Have you ever made your own dishwashing liquid? Got a great recipe to share?

In my first 52 Bites post I briefly mentioned that I created a Homeschool Binder.

There it sits on our homeschool bookshelf, next to Story of the World.

Previously I kept homeschool paperwork in separate places. The kid’s books and workbooks are in the same place on a shelf in the living room – our “school” room.

Things like answer keys, homeschool attendance reports, copies of our local homeschool law, cool ideas and articles I’d clipped from magazines and the like were filed in my small portable file box.

That sounds ok.

Trouble is, I rarely looked at that file so a lot of the neat stuff in there was lost in oblivion.

I picked up a nice looking 3 ring binder at Barnes and Noble on the clearance table. (Don’t you love the clearance table at B&N? I also picked up two Wordly Wise workbooks at half price. Nice!)

It took me all of 5 minutes to place the following inside it:

• answer keys
• worksheets that I had printed
• lists of sight words for the upcoming reader
• Spanish vocabulary lists
• fun projects and ideas
• and other odds and ends that were floating in different places

Now it’s all in ONE spot. I grab it when I need it and put it back at the end of the school day.

Um, Why did I not do this earlier?

How do you organize your miscellaneous homeschool papers?

(This is the first post in an installment in which I share my results working through the projects in the ebook One Bite At a Time. Stay tuned for more!)

I wrote a review of Simple Mom’s new ebook 52 Bites here: Simple Living, an Ebook

I promised to update you as I progressed through the book. Here are some of my favorite projects so far and what I’ve done with them.

# 3 is Create a Morning Routine. Even though I began waking earlier than my kids before I got the ebook, actually writing down and implementing a morning routine has been a wonderful addition to my life! On the rare occasion that my alarm doesn’t go off and I accidentally sleep in, I feel “off” all day. I love my morning routine!

Because I’m getting up earlier and have peaceful quiet time in the morning, I’m able to “Eat my Frog”  (project #1!). While I don’t really have any task that I dislike, getting my blog post written first thing in the morning gives me peace all day. I can focus on my kids and my household tasks more easily when that “frog” is in my belly.

I already had an Evening Routine (project #4). I unload the dishwasher, tidy the kitchen, pick out my clothing for the next day, and pick up the living room.

Menu planning (project #5) has been part of my routine for years. After the birth of my 3rd baby I found it challenging to get dinner on the table, so I would set aside time to make browse through my cookbooks and plan a menu. I love knowing, in the morning, what’s for dinner. It saves me time, money and stress.

Project #6 – create a family purpose statement, really baffles me. Honestly. This is something that has been niggling in the back of my mind for years, ever since I read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. While I know in my heart what I want my family to stand for, it’s hard putting it on paper and committing to it. I am probably overthinking it, honestly.

What I DID do in preparation for this project? I asked everyone in the family to write down one thing they loved about each member of the family. Initially I planned on creating some piece of artwork to hang on the wall out of this, but I realized that I could also find out what each member of the family values. I see common themes popping out in their descriptions: fun, caring, love, listening… I need to sit down with my husband and talk about this during our Couples Meeting. (Project #13 – we were already doing this. Every week we have a budget meeting slash weekly update where we discuss things we want to bring up at our family meeting. It’s fun and I look forward to it all week.)

Project #7 encourages you to Downsize your book and magazine collection. Boy, did I ever. I realized that there was no value in keeping a book that I wasn’t in love with. I do love books! But if I hadn’t referenced it in a year, it went. I’ve made about $150 on Amazon.com in the last two months selling books.

I also appreciate what Tsh said in her book Organized Simplicity about avoiding “twaddle” in kid’s books. I firmly agree. While the occasional Captain Underpants has made it’s way into our collection (and I’m ok with that), I made a concerted effort to get rid of junky kid lit.

Interestingly in this past week I’ve increased our collection of great kid’s books. Our library sold off a bunch of great titles for $1 apiece, and then I hit a yard sale of a former schoolteacher. I picked the finest (Blueberries for Sal, etc) ones and made off like a bandit… $0.25 each!

I’m soooo tempted to get an e-reader so I can keep my book collection small. My fear is that I’ll spend too much money and time reading.

When it comes to magazines, I am now taking pictures of great articles, recipes or photos that I want to keep and uploading them to Evernote! LOVE that. Now I’ll actually see and use them in the future, but without the paper clutter.

Project #17 is another big one: Create an essential papers file. I started working on this one right away. Since I have an online business, I have various expenses that debit automatically from my Paypal account, and income from various sources. If something were to happen to me, there has to be a way for my husband to get to my money and stop the recurring expenses.

I write down my username and password for all of these sites. We still need to get our wills drawn up. Yikes. Time to act like grownups.

Project #21 – Organize your files. I don’t have a lot of paper, but I did go through my personal files and threw out a lot of stuff. I created a separate homeschool binder, for answer keys, worksheets that have yet to be used, lists of sight words, Spanish vocabulary, and other odds and ends that were floating in different places. Now it’s all in ONE spot.

Project #22 – Declutter kid’s toys. We don’t have a lot of kid’s toys, but my 10 year old son is decluttering his room and started an eBay business. I’m rejoicing at this, because he was formerly a bit of a packrat!

That’s where I’m at so far. I didn’t mention every project listed in the book, because many of them are things I already am in the habit of doing (using cloth in the kitchen instead of paper, for instance).

If you haven’t already read this book, I highly recommend it. At $5, it’s really a no-brainer. If you pick up just ONE idea that makes your day run a little more smoothly, it’s worth it. Get it here: 52 Bites.

This afternoon I took a moment to look around the house.

There are hundreds of thin strips of colored paper in various locations around the living room. The remains of an art project that the girls have been picking up and discarding for the last two hours.

Legos and half completed Lego structures take up residence on nearly every flat surface (and some not so flat surfaces, like the sofa).

There are library books, books we own, picture books, novels, homeschool workbooks, nonfiction books, a dictionary, notebook paper, pens, pencils, a glue stick, Sharpies, markers and water glasses littering the coffee table and floor.

There is egg and rice all over the floor, curiously around the high chair, courtesy of a certain 9 month old who shall remain nameless.

The dishes are overflowing the kitchen sink and counters. And dishwasher.

The kid’s rooms look like a tornado came through.

Did I mention it’s 10 AM?

Yes folks, homeschooling is a mess.

I hear homeschooling moms say, “You can either do school, or you can do housework.”

It’s true isn’t it!

How do you deal with the need for order and the need to create a rich learning environment for your kids?

I’ll tell you what we do.

At 4:30 every day it’s officially Chore Time. My phone alarm goes off, even.

(Of course oldest, who does Laundry, does his chore several times a day.)

I used to be one of those “clean as you go” type of people, but I found this was too distracting for the kids.

It’s easier for them when schooltime can have a clear cut “done” time. If there are numerous periods during the day when I or they have to stop schoolwork in order to tidy up, they get too off course, and then I’m back to corralling them back into the living room.

Which is rather like herding cats. Or using spaghetti for bookends.

Some days it’s just fine with me, but other days the Beautiful Disaster really gets on my nerves. Today was one of those days where I was having to talk myself out of a panic attack at it all. I did my best to ignore it while doing read alouds, math, history, geography, etc. I did ok. But I wish I could be more relaxed about the mounting piles. Instead, my face contorts into this kind of nervous twitch.

How do you handle the mess of homeschooling?

Possum Living is one of those books that, as soon as I heard about it, I HAD to read.

Unable to find it in the library system (which would have been true Possum style), I ordered the book from Amazon and the day it arrived, devoured it in a few hours.

Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money

I couldn’t put it down.

Dolly Freed, the author (a pseudonym), wrote the book at age 18. It chronicles her days as an independent young woman, living with her father in Pennsylvania in the late 70′s.

Possum Living is basically about the lifestyle of these two people who choose to escape the drudgery of full time work to live a life of self sufficiency and freedom.

They survived on less than $1500 a year yet kept up a middle class facade (it helped that they owned their home outright). Dolly was unschooled (her Dad took her out of public school at 12 and she educated herself by reading and studying for free at the library), and she and her father hunted, fished, gardened, raised chickens and rabbits, and did whatever they felt like doing.

Possum Living became a cult classic in the late 70′s and was recently republished 30 years later, with an afterword added by an older, wiser Dolly.

Dolly is quite a character, which makes reading the book just plain fun, regardless of the subject matter. She is cheeky, fiercely intelligent, just a tiny bit irreverent, and witty. She reminded me of my oldest child.

I love peeking into the lives of people who are doing extraordinary, unusual things. People who are creating just the life they want, regardless of what others might think.

The book contains a lot of practical information for those who are interested in homesteading or creating economic independence through self sufficient practices. (If you want to distill your own moonshine, buy a house for pennies on the dollar on the courthouse steps, or gut a feral cat, Dolly’s your gal.)

But my favorite thing about this book is its general philosophy.

Freedom and choices – those things are deeply important to me.

Dolly admits that most people won’t be interested in living as high on the “possum scale” as she and her Dad did. But the point is that you can apply Possum philosophies to your own situation in order to become less dependent on the system to sustain you.  As Dolly says, it’s far easier to do without stuff you really don’t need, or learn how to get it for free, and reject the money economy (and the keeping up with the Joneses that’s part and parcel of that) than it is to earn money.  And you don’t pay income taxes on money you kept in your pocket!

I love this message. It’s inspired me. (I’ll talk about some of the changes I’m making in a later post.)

When I was a single mom, I lived quite well on an income that was a fraction of what most people earn. I was so proud and grateful that I could support myself and my children (and still homeschool for the most part) without holding down a job.

Some Favorite Quotes from Possum Living:

• “It’s easier to learn to do without some of the things that money can buy than to earn the money to buy them.”
  
• “If you can’t go the whole route, at least go part way. If you can’t become a nonconsumer, aim to be a mini-consumer, Okay?”
  
• “Not having to go to school, I had time to actually learn something interesting and useful such as how to make moonshine, how to buy a house at a sheriff sale, how to make money in business, how to repair a house, and even how to read and write – these last two being more than you can say for 14.29% of the 1976 high school seniors of the Philadelphia public school system.”

Do you ever feel like a Possum? What kinds of things do you do to be more self sufficient and escape the rat race?

In my ongoing quest to a) frugally feed my family and at the same time b) improve the quality of our diet, I had a bit of an epiphany the other day.

I decided to make a list of things that I currently BUY that I could MAKE from scratch.

A lot of stuff we purchase at the grocery store (like condiments and cleaning supplies) weren’t even available to our Grandmothers or weren’t affordable. These items were made at home.  Typically, the made at home version is far superior to the store bought, and usually cheaper.

Here’s what I came up with after a little brainstorming. Some of these items I regularly make myself, but I threw them in there because I thought it might be helpful to you. If you have any more suggestions, links to recipes or tips, please comment!
photo credit

Stuff To Make At Home Instead of Buy

Salad Dressing – I love a simple olive oil, apple cider vinegar and honey vinaigrette. Sometimes a “Ranch” style dressing is nice too. Here is a creamy salad dressing recipe to try. (MSG and other icky ingredients not included.)

Laundry Detergent – I haven’t bought laundry detergent in several years. I make my own. (Big Z thinks I’m some kind of genius!) It’s cheap as dirt and works great. I use this recipe for homemade laundry detergent.

Dishwasher Detergent – I’ve made this in the past and found that it made my glasses cloudy, but after reading the recipe and comments on this site, I’m motivated to try again. Update 1/2012: After months of experimenting with various recipes, I’ve found that homemade dishwasher detergent just doesn’t work well enough for me to use full time. I buy the regular stuff and cut it 50% with homemade.

Dishwashing Liquid – I make my own dishwashing liquid by the gallon and it is dirt cheap! I also like the fact that it doesn’t have a strong fragrance.

Mayonnaise – This won’t be a cost savings (due to the eggs), but that doesn’t matter. Homemade mayo is more nutritious. I avoid soy products and commercial mayo is made from soy oil (or canola, just as bad). An easy recipe for homemade lacto-fermented mayonnaise is here on @cheeseslave’s blog. Because it’s lacto-fermented, it’s probiotic, lasts longer in your fridge and is a “live” food. This is one of those instances where making your own won’t save you money in the short term, but the end result is a healthier diet.

Ketchup – As soon as my tomatoes start growing I want to try my hand at homemade ketchup. I’ll use the recipe from my Nourishing Traditions cookbook.

Salsa – I love my homemade lacto-fermented salsa! Again, the homemade version is a superior product in terms of nutrition and taste.  Hurry up garden, I need tomatoes and peppers!

Jelly – I’ve never tried my hand at making homemade jelly because I didn’t have a source of free berries. When my strawberries start coming up (if there are any left after the kids pick them and eat them!), I want to do this.

Coconut Milk – I had no idea you could make your own coconut milk until I got an email in my inbox with this recipe. This is especially exciting since coconut milk is super nutritious, yet very expensive – I often cannot bring myself to pay $2 a can for it but now I don’t have to go without!

Homemade Tooth Powder – I love making my own homemade tooth powder. It’s very inexpensive, and my dental hygienist approves – as long as I leave out the cinnamon! (Read the post for an explanation.) It’s great especially during pregnancy if your foamy regular toothpaste triggers gagging.

Deodorant – I use straight up baking soda. It works better than anything I’ve used.

Kombucha – Kombucha is very expensive store bought and costs almost nothing if made at home. The SCOBY will live forever if you take care of it, so the only challenge is getting one. Ask around amongst your crunchy friends, or order it online or from eBay (Google search will turn up sources). Or you can culture your own by buying a bottle of GT’s kombucha (around $4) and growing the “mother”. Easy instructions here.

Kefir – Another expensive item ($4 a quart!) when store bought that can be made for pennies at home, and is soooo easy. I used to make kefir regularly but my grains froze in the refrigerator once and I have not replaced them. Similar to kombucha, once you get the kefir grains you can make kefir forever with just the cost of milk. Get them from a friend or online.

Yogurt – I make yogurt from raw milk in my slow cooker.

Sauerkraut – Homemade sauerkraut is super nutritious (great for your gut!) and cabbage, even organic, is cheap. Since most of the sauerkraut you see in stores is cooked, it’s “dead” and a very poor substitute for homemade. You can Google for easy sauerkraut instructions. Here is a recipe for a “no pound” method. I have this fermented veggie maker from Cultures for Health and I use it to make kraut easily.

Tortillas – Ummm, homemade tortillas are so delicious and don’t compare to store bought! I don’t have a cast iron tortilla press but it’s on my list of things to buy! You can get them from a mercado or amazon.com

Bread – My oldest son is our resident bread baker.  He loves to knead dough by hand and says it’s great for stress relief (from an 11 year old!). I want to challenge him to try his hand at homemade sourdough.

Gluten Free Baking and Pancake Mix – These are very pricey in the store but a necessity for me and my youngest, who are wheat allergic. I think I’ll just stop buying these at all now that I’ve discovered using coconut flour for pancakes, breads and muffins. It’s nutritionally superior to rice flour, corn and potato starch (common ingredients in GF baking mixes), and a little of it goes a looong way (a typical recipe calls for just 1/4 cup coconut flour). To save money, I’ll start buying it in bulk online.

Wheat Free Cookies – Ditto. These are outrageously priced in the stores, and I admit to the occasional impulse buy (fix: I now go shopping without kids!). Making cookies for my youngest at home is cheap and easy enough.

Cream Soups – SO many recipes I have that are convenient (slow cooker recipes for instance) for my family call for cream soups. I don’t buy these because they all contain wheat, MSG and other ingredients I want to avoid. I knew there had to be a substitute for this addition to recipes so I did a little searching and found that cream soup can be replaced by a simple white sauce! DUH. The cream soup serves as a thickener basically. Obviously if the recipe calls for “cream of mushroom soup”, you could add diced mushrooms. Finding out this info was a big forehead slapper!

Pickles – My kids LOVE pickles, but I don’t buy them because commercially available pickles usually contain food dyes, HFCS and other ingredients I avoid. Homemade pickles (using a cold method) are more nutritious since they’re raw, lacto-fermented, not cooked. I planted cucumbers this year just so the kids could make pickles homemade. Can’t wait!

What types of things do you make instead of buy? Got any great homemade recipes?

Please comment!

3 year old Sadie came to me and asked me to “tie it” (the string on the back of her apron).

Several minutes later, she came back to me (my feet up, seated at the couch, nursing a sore throat and a bad mood).

She grabbed my hand.

She led me to the kitchen.

“I washed the dishes Mommy.”

“You didn’t have to do it.”

(Half a bottle of Seventh Generation dishwashing liquid used, thick-with-soapy half clean dishes stacked ever so precariously in the drying rack…)

I almost cried.

This week “Smarter Homemaking” is the theme for this special hour long show, and I have two guests.

First I spoke with New Zealand’s own “ecoman” Malcolm Rands of EcoStore.
After years of success in New Zealand, EcoStore has brought their products to the US.
Malcolm wants to educate Americans about the benefits of using plant-based ingredients for household cleaning, and shares the results that New Zealanders have experienced in terms of family health.  Many people have seen eczema and allergy symptoms improve or disappear all together.

Next you’ll hear from Heather Legler of Modern American Housewife.

She is sharing her love and knowledge of homemaking with us. Our topic is the Art and Science of Homemaking. Check out some of Heather’s book recommendations:

Art of Homemaking and Joy of Homemaking by Daryl Hoole
Organized Home by Real Simple
Worlds Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan
Clutter’s Last Stand: It’s Time to De-Junk Your Life! by Don Aslett

Now about our giveaway!

One commenter will win a Simply Pilates DVD and book set by Jennifer Pohlman. The DVD is a complete beginner or intermediate Pilates workout and the book has full color instructions to make learning the moves easier.

In order to win, just leave a comment below. The winner will be chosen on Wednesday, February 4th at (12:00) NOON Eastern time.

Leave one comment to enter once. To increase your chances of winning, do each of the following:

• Mention the contest on your blog, linking to this page
• Twitter about the contest
• Email your friends

Let me know what you did to help spread the word in your comment and please leave a valid email address so I can contact you!

(You must be a resident of the USA or Canada in order to win.)

This week on Moms Love Shopping, Chele tackled the topic of reducing your utility bills. She mentioned CFLs, which I use and posted some warnings/good to know about CFLs here.

Another thing I started doing several months ago is hanging all the laundry. I talked about how I bought these indoor drying racks from IKEA for really cold or rainy days.

I enjoy hanging laundry out and it certainly makes a difference on the utility bills! Some other ideas:

• Wash everything in cold water. You know what? I didn’t used to do this tip, but recently I’ve only been washing in cold and my laundry comes out just as clean. I think it must have to do with the hardness of the water, because I’m now living in another area. I use the same laundry powder as before, but I do a 30 minute soak for each load first, so that may help, but I think most of it is due to the quality of the water.
• Bathe the kids together. If they’re the same gender, put them in the tub together. Saves water and heating up the water. Even if they’re not the same gender, it’s ok to put them in together before they’re around 5 and get curious. Your mileage may vary of course!
• Bake multiple items. I try to use my oven as little as possible, but when I turn on the oven, I generally throw in a few potatoes for breakfast the next morning. Using a slow cooker saves on utility costs, as does baking in a toaster oven. Try to use the smallest appliance for the job.
• Let your hair air dry. Personally I am far too lazy to blow out my naturally wavy hair. LOL! But it also guzzles electricity.
• Go solar. While it requires an initial investment it can save money over the long haul. Check out this solar charger for your ipod, cell phone and other small stuff.
• Unplug stuff. A lot of your appliances use power even when they’re off. Stuff that uses a remote (TV, VCR/DVD) are good examples. Put your puter on sleep when you walk away or power it down.