Home Made Dish Washing Machine Soap(powder)

Yay I found my camera. So here is the DIY Dish washing Machine powder. It is SUPER EASY! Ready? 2 cups washing soda, 2 cups borax, 2 cups lime and shine and 1 cup of kosher salt! Easy right? And you can use vinegar as a rinse aid. The lime and shine didn't make it in the picture because I made this about a week ago, and it works great! Now here is your tip. A friend of mine told me you have to be careful using borax in your machine, because it can clog it up. Mine hasn't clogged up, but I am not wiling to take the chance. So all you need to do is use your regular cleaner every once in a while. I use my powder for two loads and then I use a store bought liquid. Hope you all enjoy your home made goodies. I have plenty more to share later :D

Busy Busy Busy

Here is a house cleaning tip for all you busy worker wives, house wives, mom/wives or even just busy people. So Wednesday is my only off day this week. It really stinks because I am a closer and don't get home till around 11 at night so it just kind of drains your day. So my tip is on weeks like this, Weather it be work, kids practice, teacher meetings, school work or whatever you have going on, take on one room for each day. Instead of cleaning all the floors, putting away things in every room or whatever your chores are; focus on one room. Today I cleaned the dining room. I scrubbed every surface, swept, moped, even cleaned base boards. Cleaned off the table, cleaned the windows and scrubbed icky spots on the door (you know the places, where people grab to close the door instead of the door knob) This way you are not cleaning all day on top of doing all your scheduled stuff. You can pick and choose what room you need to clean the most. I normally don't leave stuff in the living room anyways so thats the room I will clean last since, it really doesn't need it. Tips for keeping your house cleaner so that it doesn't all sneak up on you. Daily When you are leaving a room, take something that doesn't belong in there out with you. Unload the dish washer every morning so you can load it after every meal and run it at night (this also helps in the summer to keep your house cooler. Running machines heat up your house so by doing it at night when it is cooler outside it will help your indoor temperature as well) Go ahead and wipe up things as you go. It only takes a few minutes to wipe the bathroom sink, kitchen sink, tables and counters. We all hate cleaning floors, so pick a day or two through out the week to go ahead and do it. Put your dirty clothes in a hamper. Hope you find these tips helpful. As soon as I find my camera I will do a post on homemade dish washer soap :D

Adjusting

When we moved to AR for Jason to be stationed at Little Rock AFB we ended up in a little apartment in North Little Rock. If you have never been to North Little Rock it is pretty big. It has a Walmart, Lowes, Home depot, its own mall, two movie theaters (in the process of building its third) Hobby Lobby, and so on and so on. I moved there in November after our wedding and it was hard. I couldn't drive anywhere because I didn't know where anything was. Then December hit and the Christmas traffic was too much for me! Finally end of January I was driving us to church and I was hit from behind. Crazy right? I came from a small town with one traffic light. I only graduated with about 88 kids. Slowly I am getting better. I can drive around NLR for the most part. The real challenge was after I found a job in NLR and then we moved into a house on base. The base is in a smaller city (still bigger then my home town) but to get to work I drive three lane traffic. I don't like three lane traffic, if I want to the middle lane and the other guy across from me wants the middle lane, I am going to get hit :/ So what do I do? Find a job in a smaller city. I start Monday and I am pretty excited. I am going to miss the friends I made at my old job. They were the first real friends I made without it being friends Jason had made before I moved here, or his friends from base. I will have to keep in touch. That brings up another worry. My neighbor has been an air force wife longer then me and she told me how hard it is moving from base to base, because you make friends and you have to leave them. In fact she is leaving in a little under a year and I am going to miss her! In fact I am pretty close to all my neighbors. I just hope that through phone calls and facebook we don't lose touch. So this is my life right now. One new challenge at a time and slowly making it, but I will get there with the help of my friends, family and most important my husband :D

Laundry Time :D

Laundry soap is so expensive! Thanks to pinterest I found this blogger who does a wonderful home made laundry soap! I didn't think I would need pictures of the process, so next time I make some soap I will have to do pictures and post a new blog. Good news and bad news, the soap makes five gallons so I wont need soap for about another year LD bad news that means it wll be a while before I do the new post with pictures. But here is what you need. (Dont worry I will give credit where credit is due and post the link I got this from at the end) What you need: 1 bar grated Fels Naptha soap 1 cup washing soda (I used Arm and Hammer) 1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax 5 gallon bucket 4 1/2 gallons water *hint-boil a pan of water to help mix ingredients when you add to the bucket.* - Grate the bar of soap into a saucepan and cover with water (yes it is a pain to grate, but well worth it) cover with water and put it on low heat to dissolve the soap. Stir occasionally. -Are you boiling water? Good. - With regular tap water as hot as you can get it, fill your bucket half way. - Now add your dissolved soap and mix well. - Add your cup of washing soda, and borax MIX WELL - Add your boiling water (this really helps with the borax and washing soda to mix.) - Now fill your bucket up with hot water from the tap and of course mix well. This soap will thicken, but dont get frustrated cause it does take a while to cool down. You may need to mix it ever so often when you use it. It wont smell as strong as store bought laundry soap, but you will have a clean smell and in my opinion the bar of soap smells good and thats all you need :D as an added bonus boiling the soap on your stove makes your house smell wonderful for a few days so enjoy. It only takes half a cup of liquid to do your laundry with. And I have an HE washer and haven't had any issues with this soap. The start up coast is about 12 dollars, but you cant even get a gallon of laundry soap for under 15. The plus side is you can re use your bucket and you have left over borax and washing soda for when you need to remake a batch so you are only doing your laundry for about 5 cents a load. I put some of my soap in an empty laundry soap container, but you can use anything, old milk jugs, orange juice contains, ect. So enjoy your laundry soap :D Original link(has pictures): http://www.therachelberryblog.com/2010/03/homemade-laundry-soap.html and I found the link on pinterest through: http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/07/brand-name-laundry-detergents-last.html

Newly Wed Air Force Wife

So I have tried to blog a few times before, but after a few months they tend to fizzle out. However, I am ready to give it a go again and start fresh. This blog is going to be about the life of not only being a newly wed, but marrying into the Air Force. This is just to share some of my experience with others on ways I have found to save money, deal with changes, being away from family. First of all my husband(Jason) is a wonderful man. I left all my friends and family to move to Arkansas for this man so he has to be something special, and he is. He is my glue. He holds me together when things seem to fall apart and supports me in everything I do. We were married on November 11th of 2012. We dont have kids(yet), but we have a puppy(Shelly) and a kitten(Gizmo) We live in a neighborhood surrounded by kids who make themselves at home at our home from time to time and that is just fine with us. My family is back in Alabama where I am born and raised. Jason's is a bit more whide spread. His parents are moving to Oklahoma, his oldest sister is in Arizona, his brother is in Kansas and were not sure where the little sister will be since her husband recently joined the Air Force. Makes life a little tricky traveling 6 or more hours for everybody. Luckily we have been able to do some trips here and there and see everybody. Our next trip is to Arizona in November for Thanksgiving and then to Alabama at the end of December for New Years. Well I wont over load you with a lot of information on this first post. What I hope to bring to this blog is helpful hints in life, dealing with change, the good times and bad. I am going to try and do better then I have in the past with my blogs. I am going to share some homemade stuff I have found online and how it helps me. Helpful recipes, which was a big deal to me since I never really cooked much before I got married and I think I do pretty well (If I say so myself).