Monday, September 21, 2009

Another week down....

Hey we made it through another week!! It is another typical Monday here in the Weger household. Yesterday I decided to venture into unknown territory. I have been thinking about this for a few weeks now, but decided to go for it yesterday. I have been slowly trying to reduce the amount of chemicals we use in our household. Our steam mop works wonders, and our floor gets clean without using harsh chemicals. We also save $$ by not buying floor cleaner. Now I am wanting to go even further and try to make our own laundry detergent. It is really very simple. All you need is some soap(any kind you like really), something to shave the soap into small pieces (like a cheese grater), Borax, water, and washing soda. 1 bar of soap can make 5 GALLONS of detergent! Later on, as we go through all of our store bought cleaners, I am just going to make my own instead of buying more.

So, Sunday I took both the boys with me on my quest to find all the ingredients. It ended up being a fiasco (really? That is Normal for us) because we had to go to multiple stores. The first was the BX. A certain aroma was emanating from a certain 5yr olds backside and apparently it smelled so bad that he himself was gagging. At first I thought "great, another phase of something he is doing to stim himself". Then I thought maybe something in the store was setting him off...because he did not do this in the car. And to be honest, he can smell up his room, and all it will be is gas. I thought this could be one of those times. Not so. I caught a good whif as I lifted him into the car after going to Target. We came home and promptly changed him.

Today, after everyone was at school, I went and found some Washing Soda by Arm & Hammer and went about detergent making. It was not hard at all. We grated some Irish Spring soap(it can be any type, we just had that lying around), and put that into 4 cups boiling water. I stirred in the little soap pieces until they were melted. In a 10 Gallon Rubbermaid Container, I mixed in 3 gallons of warm tap water, 1 cup of Washing Soda, and 1/2 cup of Borax. I stirred it around until it was all mixed together. Then I added our soap solution from the stove. You have to let it sit for 24 hours, then stir and use. We have it sitting in the container with the top on off to the side of our dining room. So far, it is still smelling like Irish Spring and it is starting to get a little more solid. If this goes well, we just made 3 GALLONS of detergent for an extremely low price! And as our store bought cleaners run out, we will be making all of those ourselves as well.