Green Living - Homemade Fabric Softner

double batch - Fruit Loops

I've been dying to try making my own fabric softner since the first time I made homemade laundry soap.  I have used straight vinegar before, in the interest of being green.  That works; your clothes are not as crunchy as they are without fabric softner.  But, I missed my fresh and homey scented Snuggle.  I decided that I could make my own fabric softner and add in scents.

This was very easy to make.  You use about 1/8 cup of this mixture with each load of laundry in a regular machine.  I use 1/16 cup in my HE washer.  So, it is definitely very inexpensive per load.  I made 2 batches and scented them like Fruit Loops.  I'm going to use it for the kids clothes.  As soon as I get another container, I will make some for the adult clothing and scent it with a fresh linen scent that I bought.

Ingredients:
2 cups of vinegar
2 cups of baking soda
4 cups of warm water
scent - as much (or as little) as you like

I recommend storing this is a container that you can shake.  I put a pic below to show that it does separate, so you will have to shake this up before using it.  I ended up using a 1 gallon vinegar jug.  I also recommend mixing this up in a wide container in your sink.  The vinegar and baking soda will fizz up.  If you mix in your sink, you won't have to worry about the over flowing.  I added the water first, then vinegar then baking soda, in small amounts to minimize the fizz.

Add the scent last.  Just add a drop or two and see how it smells to you.  You can always add more.  For reference, I made a double batch and I used 1.5ml of scent.

everything you need

use your sink

see how it separates?

10 Things - Goldfish Snacks

from: dealseekingmom Blog

A friend and her husband came to town over Labor Day weekend.  They came for a visit and brought S'mores Goldfish!  I never even heard of this variety.  They were delish - especially when you eat the marshmallow, graham cracker and chocolate together in one bite.  I bought our babies the Baby Goldfish a while back.  While chomping up a few, I remembered how much I like Goldfish!  I bought a package for us.  While chomping those up, I remembered how much I used to like the pretzel ones and the pizza ones.

Today's Top Ten List - My Favorite Goldfish:

1. Pretzel
2. Regular Cheddar
3. S'Mores
4. Baby
5. Pizza
6. Parmesan
7. Colors
8. Sour Cream & Onion
9. Saltine (especially in tomato soup)
10. Red Hot

Apparently there are ranch flavored Goldfish?  I have to try these out!

TV Recap - Gossip Girl - September 27, 2010

I just love a secret society!   Gossip Girl doesn't disappoint with it comes to societies.  Hamilton House is the new place to be.  I'm so happy that Serena and Blair put their friendship first.  Maybe they will lave all that catty competition behind!  Juliet is in for it now that Serena's in the club and Lilly is in the know.

Whoa, Dan was the most exciting part of the epi?  Not Dan's baby, WOOT!  Dan should thank his lucky stars that he no longer has to have Geogina Sparks in his life.  Too bad about little Milo, though.  And, Dan and Vanessa are back together and are now live-in-lovers?  Did not expect that to happen so soon into the season.

Still not too invested in Chuck & Eva.  I saw from the previews that there is some excitement with them next week.  It will take a great storyline to hook me.

How cute was Chuck with Lilly?  Even though he is awful, I still like this relationship.  Chuck betta watch out for Papa Humphrey.

Blair and Doroda were so cute when they showed Serena her bedroom!

So happy that Nate isn't letting Serena off easy this time.  She usually bats her eyes at him and he forgives her.  But, she did cheat on him, so she deserves some time on the freeze.

Questions:
Is Juliet poor or not?  She left the tags on her clothes in an earlier epi.  But, she's in the Hamilton House and is the Key Master.  Wouldn't those girls have noticed her clothing issues?  Or, does she borrow everyone's clothes?  Maybe that's why she was joking to Blair about borrowing her clothes?

Who is her jailbird bf?  Do we know who he is?  He looks familiar but, I do watch a lot of TV, so I could just recognize him from another show.

When is Little J coming back?  Why doesn't Eric get more screen time?

Craft Supplies on Etsy

(I must apologize for my pictures being mis-aligned.  I need to learn how to edit some code, or something).

I like to scrapbook and make cards, occasionally.  To my great surprise, one day, I noticed that I can buy craft supplies on Etsy.  This surprised me, for some reason.  Unique, handmade craft supplies?  Yes!

from: norajane, Etsy

from: norajane, Etsy

Some of my favorite items are these handmade stamps and ink pads.  I own a bunch of items from this shop.

These chipboard items would be great for scrapbooks or cards. I think that my favorite item below would be the buttons!

from: Annie42, Etsy

from: Annie42, Etsy

from: Cornerstop, Etsy

from: blackscrapcat, Etsy

from: SuzanneBWebb, Etsy

from: SkullandCrossBones, Etsy

from: cocoscreations, Etsy

from: Kimmieprout, Etsy

from zwillinge97, Etsy

Our First Geocaching Adventure! (Massachusetts)

Dad's Checkered Flag was the name of the first Geocache that we found in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

We went to the cemetery once and thought that we were close.  But, it turns out that even though our car GPS says that it can be hand held, it really won't work for Geocaching.  Our GPS, TomTom One snaps you back to the real road when you are in the woods.  Since I am usually driving and not usually in the woods, I am happy to use this GPS for driving only.

I talked with my Geocaching friend about her GPS and her Geocaching friend's GPS (did ya follow that?).  After all that we decided to go with the Garmin eTrex Venture HC.  The price was right and it did everything that I need it to do.  This hand held GPS should not be used for traveling in the car as it only has major highways.

When we left the cemetery the first time without having located the Geocache, we immediately went by another cemetery!  We pulled in and checked it out.  It seemed like we could get to the Geocache through this cemetery, too.  Now, I was thoroughly confused - which cemetery was the correct cemetery?

We went home and checked the Geocache coordinates on Google Maps.  If you haven't used this awesome site yet, you are missing out!  I use it at least once a week.  From the aerial shots on Google Maps, we realized that either cemetery would work but that it was easiest from the first cemetery.  Since I am a bit of a hobby-hopper, I REALLY didn't want to spend the $ to buy a hand held GPS.  So, on another day we went back to cemetery #1.  All 4 of us were there for the first 2 attempts.  We got within 85 feet of the cashe and then... TomTom snapped us back to the main road.  We decided to get  hand held GPS after all.

In order to fund this hand held GPS purchase I looked through the house for some junk to sell.  Read more about this here. In ended up only costing us about $30 out of pocket for this adventure device.

The hand held GPS arrived on a Friday.  I added batteries and then I turned it on and let it sync up.  The online review's on Amazon said that it took a long time to find satellites.  We must live in a satellite dense area as it didn't take long at all to find 33 satellites. The next day happened to be date night at our house.  So, after the babysitter arrived, we packed up the hand held GPS and went back to cemetery #1.

We quickly found the correct area in the woods.  Now, we had to find the Geocache!  We found  Lock & Lock container attached to the bottom of a log.  I really wish that I had the camera, but, since we were heading to dinner and a concert, I didn't want to leave our camera in the car.  One day I am going to get another point & shoot camera.  I miss being able to stick the camera in my pocket.  Anyway, back to the story:  the log was cut away to make room for the Lock&Lock container.  The container fit inside the log and the log would still sit flush on the ground.  What a great design!  We were sad that the kiddos missed this first Geocashe.  But, it was worth the trip while we had the baby sitter to make sure we knew what we were doing.

And, because everyone always asks - what did we leave and what did we take?  For us, this was a TNLN (Take Nothing, Leave Nothing).  There were some cars and stuff in the cache but, we don't need anything like that.  When the children are older, we won't have that luxury, for sure!

TV Recap - Boardwalk Empire - September 26, 2010

from: NYDailyNews

Alright HBO, I need you to grab me and pull me into Boardwalk Empire ASAP or I am going to have to move on.  After all, I always have Veronica Mars on DVD to keep me entertained.  I want to like Boardwalk Empire.  I like the period, the setting, the subject and I like Nucky.  But, I need more.  I've heard that this show has a slow build and that it will payoff.  But, I need some payoff now! 

So what did we learn?
Jimmy's family celebrates Christmas late, due to cash.
Jimmy's Mom is a cabaret dancer and Jimmy isn't much of a writer.
Nucky wants $3,000 from Jimmy to square up the incident.
The FBI-IRS guy is on the hunt.
Nucky thinks that only 4 people were killed during the incident but Jimmy says 5.  Dead guy #5 is who we see way at the very end when a guy comes out of the woods and goes up to the handjob car.
Jimmy no longer drives for Nucky.
Al Capone doesn't like reporters - at all.
Nucky and NYC are on the outs. 
Al Capone doesn't Western Union his friends cash.

Mrs. Shroder didn't give any info up to FBI-IRS but she also gave Nucky his money back.

My Questions:
What is the Commander's official title? If Nucky is the Treasurer, what is he?
Is he losing it?  What was all that jazz with Luanne, his maid?  

Is Mrs. Shroder upset that her husband is dead?  Is she plotting a way to get Nucky?  She looked quite disappointed when her visitor at the hospital was Nucky's brother, and not Nucky.

How much longer must we put up with Nucky's girlfriend?  She is awful.  When she speaks, I wish that I had hit the mute button.

Jimmy received an Honorable Discharge, right?

Product Review - Lego: Harry Potter (Years 1-4) for Wii

Lego: Harry Potter (Years 1-4) for Wii is such a fun game!  We have played a bunch of these Lego games for Wii.  My favorite was the first Indiana Jones.  Batman was also quite fun.

These games don't require you to fling the Wii remote around.  They are strategy/adventure games.  They are easy enough but still fun.  My favorite part is that 2 people can play at the same time.  Both play on the same screen.  If the players get too far apart, the screen will split so that both players can see what they are doing (this aspect is an improvement over some older Lego games).

We played some of the other Harry Potter video games.  I find this one to be just a fun.  Since we are really comfortable with the Lego controls and "rules" we were able to just jump right in.