A New Spin on Laundry!

I have been watching a lot of house cleaning and decluttering videos lately.  I noticed several vloggers have been using their own homemade laundry detergent. I decided I wanted to give it a try and make my own laundry detergent.

I did a little reading to find out what exactly goes into making your own laundry detergent. The recipe I decided on is not my own; it was from another blog and I thought it was perfect timing since we are talking about TikTok hacks on the podcast. I am happy with the results and recommend this recipe from The Spruce if you want to try it out yourself.

The recipe makes about 5 cups of detergent, so I purchased a tight-sealing container that was the right size to store it in. What I was not planning on was having extra ingredients leftover. I will have to go back and get better storage containers for the back stock, and I will explain that later. Here is a breakdown on what the recipe makes:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of Borax
• 2 Cups of Washing Soda
• 1 Cup of shredded washing Soap 

1 recipe yields 5 Cups of detergent which comes to approximately 80 Loads in an HE front load washer by using 1 Tablespoon in the wash (two tablespoons for non HE)

Cost:   $13.97 after taxes

I probably spent more on the plastic locking container that I have it stored in. I also wound up with more leftover ingredients  than what the recipe called for; I could probably make at least 2 more batches. To be conservative, let's say that I get 240 loads from the supplies purchased…I am looking at about $0.05 per load! With the standard liquid laundry detergent, I was spending about $21.59 after taxes on the 100 load size container. This cost me roughly $0.22 per load, which can really add up. For my family of three, we generally have about 10 loads a week, therefore, we were spending about $115 on laundry detergent a year! With this homemade detergent, we could save about $89 on detergent per year. 

Other factors

Not only can I save money by making my own detergent, I can reduce the plastic waste that I create. All three products come in cardboard boxes, which can be broken down and recycled.  The boxes, however, are not great for long term storage because they are not sealed well. I had noticed that they were leaving powder behind wherever I stored them, and little sprinkles would spill out when I moved them around. I took the contents out of their boxes and put them in labeled Ziplocs to make sure they are airtight. It is very humid here in North Texas, and my washing machine is in the garage, so I want to make sure my supplies last. If the detergent gets clumpy, it will not dissolve in the wash and will leave residue on the clothing. Another thing to factor in is time. The bar of soap does need to be grated, but it took no time at all, and it seems like it will be a very long time before I need to grate more because I have more than enough ready to use. 

Although I am a lover of all things fragrant, I have been enjoying the light smell of the shredded washing soap. It is not an overbearing scent. I have thought about trying out other recipes and possibly other alternatives to enhance the scent because I do miss the smell of Tide from time to time. If you are wondering if my clothes are coming out clean, the recipe only recommended 1 tablespoon for my high efficiency. I was a little skeptical that my clothes wouldn't come out clean with such a little amount of soap but I am not finding any clothes that are not coming out clean from the wash. Travis does come home with stains set in stains on some of his work clothes and so I still have to use a stain remover on those to spot clean. 

The Final Product

Let me know what you think! Would you ever use a homemade laundry detergent or cleaning supply? Let me know if you try out the recipe above and if it worked for you. 

#makeyourbedchallenge

Hi everyone! I am just going to come right out and say it! I am struggling! I am so behind on what I feel I need to be doing, should be doing and what others expect me to do. I tend to jump into things head first with great intentions and then I suddenly feel like an octopus trying to juggle flaming torches, knives, and hand grenades. I am sure that I am a thousand blogs behind, and let's not talk about the unfinished tasks that I have had to get help on recently. I feel so defeated sometimes. I know that we can all feel this way from time to time, and I know this is a safe place to talk about it. I have a lot of exciting things going on in my life, too, so it can all be an emotional rollercoaster. This blog post has a happy ending, I can assure you that.

Me: feeling overwhelmed!

So, what have I been doing to help with the overwhelming feelings of stress? 

Listening to myself:

I opened a letter that came in the mail recently that was unmarked. I had this gut feeling that it was something terrible. That is probably an automatic response from getting so many bills and unwanted notices in the mail. I hardly ever get good stuff in my mailbox. Well, I started to open this letter, and as I do so, I am paying attention to my feelings. I have been doing a lot of shadow work lately and because of it, I am open to receiving messages from within. The message I heard today was loud and clear. My heart was saying, “My life is falling apart.” In all honesty, yes, I feel wound up and simultaneously over stretched, but surely my life is not falling apart! Part of me wanted to tell myself to not be so overdramatic, but the compassionate part of me reminded me that anything that can come by mail, can be handled. There is nothing that would destroy my family so much that I would truly feel that my life was falling apart. I have to be the voice of reason for myself, as well as comforting and accepting. If you are curious what was in the mail, it was some junk about my husband’s car warranty expiring, nothing worth my day spinning out of control over. 

Doing that one hard thing - and asking for help with it:

I had a daunting task that has been looming over my head for the past year. It has been something that I have been avoiding for various reasons. I start getting those excuses in my head for why I can’t do something or why I should do it later, and sure enough, it starts to sound like a broken record in my head. This is something that I have been working on with my therapist. I tend to associate social discomfort with physical discomfort, and it makes my life very challenging. I end up “punishing myself” because I have a self-limiting belief that I can’t accomplish the task, and then I punish myself for not completing it. This particular task is something that, because I was avoiding it, I didn’t allow myself to enjoy doing other things – that was my punishment. I had to do it though. And yes, there are some things that you don’t have to do, but this was one of those things that just needed to be done. I was tired of not doing it, and I knew that the only way it would get done was if I enlisted someone else's help. Thankfully that person obliged, I didn’t even have to explain myself. I know I will owe them a huge favor. But sometimes you just have to call your friend over to “kill the spider.” Now that this spider has been killed, I am ready to move on to the next one, I no longer feel paralyzed by it. 

Making space to enjoy my life:

I was starting to feel the walls closing in. I’m not really that claustrophobic, but I do start to feel like a bull in a china shop. When I feel like I can’t move around without knocking things over, or having to move-things-to-get-to-other-things-so-I-can do-things, I get really frustrated. I get overwhelmed, panicky, and spin out. I become useless and shut down. I will retreat into a book or television, and the rest of my day is toast. Since I was feeling overwhelmed one day, I decided to watch some videos on YouTube. I thought it might be relaxing to watch some organization videos. Sometimes watching other people clean can be really satisfying. I stumbled across some videos of people decluttering, and I was hooked. I found it so exhilarating to see people hold up a plastic cup from a restaurant and explain that they have 50 cups and they don’t need this one in particular and toss it in the recycle bin. It actually got me pumped. I then started decluttering while I was watching the video. This whole week has been quite refreshing as I have been inspired to do a clean sweep of many of the messy areas in our home that tend to get over-stacked. I went through the pantry and tossed a bunch of expired food. We decluttered the fridge. I ransacked Reyna’s room while she was at her grandpa’s house and threw away a lot of trash, and I even got a donation box with some of her toys and baby books put together. My motivation was even rubbing off on my husband, Travis. He was willing to part ways with some of the unused tumblers and Tupperware that was stuffed in all the nooks and crannies. Some of the most inspiring videos were from Cassandra Aarssen from Clutterbug. We blogged about what type of Clutterbug we were and discussed the quiz on the podcast last year. I was really planning to do my spring cleaning in the spring, but this year I just couldn’t wait to get started. I started out in the game closet and ever since I dumped out an entire box of hard playdough without a second thought, I have been a changed woman. I find myself decluttering everywhere I go in the house. I even decluttered my sewing case while I was at a retreat this weekend. I dumped a handful of miscellaneous buttons in the trash that I have been toting around with me for 20+ years, and it was so freeing! Another great vlogger that I want to share is The Minimal Mom - The Myth of Being Behind. This particular video reminds us that we are not behind, we are doing what we are capable of doing at the time. In the world of Pinterest perfectionism we need to be reminded that we are normal and it’s ok. 

I am feeling better about my situation in life. It is not actually spinning out of control, that’s just a mindset. Life is a work in progress. And, for real, if you read this far, I really appreciate it! There is just something so powerful about putting my words out there, speaking my truth, and hashing it out. I feel so much better now than I did 45 minutes ago. 

I encourage you to check out our podcast coming out on Wednesday. Motivation and life hacks are abundant. This week we are talking about the “Make Your Bed Challenge”. I don’t know if that is a real thing or not but we made it a challenge. Starting March 1st we are challenging ourselves and our listeners and readers to do the challenge with us! This is a productivity challenge. We go into detail behind the reasoning as to why it is important to start your day off by making your bed every day. So if you feel like your life is spinning out of control or you need a little more regimentation and order in your life, Wednesday’s podcast is for you. So start your day off by making the bed, and remember that intention is better than perfection. 

If you participate in our "Make Your Bed Every Day" Challenge, be sure to tag us on your Facebook and Instagram posts:  @ModernMusingsMMC and #mmcmakeyouredchallenge

Plan Ahead to Avoid the Sacrifice

Hey everyone! On the podcast this week, we talked about making those little sacrifices every now and then. Those little sacrifices could be skipping on personal hygiene or other self care activities. Basically, if you are running tight on time, you might omit important parts of your selfcare routine. We all do it; it might not be sacrificing the shower or brushing your teeth, some might sacrifice even more if they are really pressed for time! These are just the choices we make on an everyday basis. I find that when I return from a trip or have a huge schedule upheaval, I get really off my routine and miss important things, like meal planning and other personal business.

Travis, Reyna and I recently went on a family trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. We were only gone for four days, but it was right in the middle of a busy week at work and right before the Labor Day holiday. I knew that we would be cutting it close when it came down to packing and heading out for our trip, and even getting back home and unpacking might be a struggle. I made sure to take an extra day off before we left town, and another one when we got back so that we could get packed and unpacked without feeling rushed. I also wanted to make sure that all the clothes that I wanted were clean and easy to find so that I wouldn't have to make any compromises with my wardrobe. Since I get a little off track due to vacations, I thought I would share what we did this time around to prevent our personal matters from slipping through the cracks – a little premeditated self-care if you will. These are just some things you can do to prepare before you go on a trip. By planning ahead, you can prevent yourself from making last minute sacrifices. 

Reyna living it up in NOLA

Prevent a clothing catastrophe:

• Wash, fold and put away all your laundry at least 1-2 days before you start packing.
• Pack the day before (or sooner)
• Use a packing list
• I start tossing things I want to take into an empty laundry basket when I come across it in the week before my trip

Kitchen clean out:

• Plan your meals for the week before your trip and the week after
• Clean out your fridge; freeze, use or throw away anything that will expire while you are gone
• Order your road trip snacks with grocery pick up instead of buying from expensive convenient stores as you travel - Check out Cindy's blog here
• Get grocery pick up when you arrive back in town
• Do a quick run through your cleaning checklist for your kitchen

Don’t let the bills slip:

• Check your bills that will be due while traveling and anything coming up afterwards.
• Pay them before you go or make sure auto pay will go through

Come home to a clean house:

• Tidy up and declutter before you go
• Empty all your trash cans and waste bins
• Set out clean towels for your kitchen and bathrooms
• Make your bed
• Make sure all the dishes are washed and put away
• Do a quick run through your cleaning checklist for the rest of your home

Travis enjoying brunch on our way back home.

If you can manage to take care of these everyday tasks before you set out on your vacation, you will come home to a clean house, and you’ll  have less things to worry about when you get back. Once you get back home, you can unpack and relax a little before getting back into your daily routine. Doing the extra work before you play by planning meals and pre-paying the bills will ensure that you don’t forget anything or feel overwhelmed when you return.

Everyday Tasks

Let’s face it – cleaning is hard. It’s hard especially if you have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It is like the angel and devil on your shoulder. My OCD says, “Clean,” and my ADHD says, “Do Everything But….” That is why I need to have a cleaning checklist.

In my last blog, I talked about my tendency to hoard and how difficult it was to move to a new place. What I didn’t talk about was how cleaning my old place after I moved was a nightmare. I had two years' worth of cobwebs on my ceiling, two years of dust on my blinds, and two years of grime on my baseboards. When I moved to my new place, I vowed to never my place get that dirty again and I resolved to make an effort to keep my house clean, if anything, to be able to invite company over.

Because I struggle so much with consistency, I try to keep a daily checklist of things that I need to do for that day on my fridge. Not all the things on my checklist are cleaning-related. I have the simplest things on there such as “drink water” because I find that I have to constantly remind myself to do things. I’ve tried cleaning my house in a variety of ways over the years but I find it best if I complete one task every day and I do that task immediately after I get home from work or I will sit down and all will be lost.

• Sunday: Laundry and Vacuum Day. I do this simultaneously between laundry loads.
• Monday: Kitchen Day. I typically run the dishwasher, clean my counters, and stove, and clean out my fridge on this day.
• Tuesday: Bathroom Day. I typically clean most of my bathroom this day. I clean my shower daily as I shower. This is a hack I picked up from TikTok (featured on ThisYouNeed).
• Wednesday: Miscellaneous Dusting/Clutter Day. I typically try to lightly dust my bookshelves, window sills, and blinds for cobwebs if needed. I also try and go through any clutter that is amassed during the week and get my trash ready to be taken out.
• Thursday: Date Night/Rest Day. Jason is off on Thursdays so we typically have our date night on Thursday.
• Friday/Saturday: Deep Sweeping Day/Deep Cat Box cleaning. Caring for cats is almost a daily task but I typically wash out their cat box at least once a week. Over the week they also tend to get litter on the floor in the area of their cat box or track it across the house.

My cleaning checklist isn’t perfect and I don’t follow it 100% every week but I have lived a much cleaner existence since I have implemented it. I want to hear from our readers. Do you have a cleaning checklist? What do you do to make your life easier when cleaning? Continue the conversation on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.

My Household Tending List

Hi there! It’s Cindy again. I hope you enjoyed our podcast yesterday about cleaning checklists. As I mentioned in our discussion, I think checklists are a great idea, and I have been using them to help me get through all my chores for a long time. Let’s face it…we’re busy! We have jobs, kids, spouses, boyfriends, hobbies, and so much stuff that we have to take care of at any given time that some of that stuff tends to fall through the cracks. That’s why I created a monthly checklist that I put in my day planner.

My current household checklist

I call this checklist my “tending list” because it goes along with my PowerSheets® tending list.  Whenever I check one, I automatically check the other. It’s a great form of accountability for me because I love filling in all the little squares (an OCD thing from childhood), and I feel so accomplished when I look at them and see that I’ve accomplished a lot. My list has far more than just cleaning tasks, as I’ve included some work, health, and family items on it as well. There are a few items I’d like to add to it, but it works for me so far – maybe next month.

My list started several years ago as a bujo (see bullet journal) entry, but I prefer having it in my Happy Planner with all my other tasks. My early planner lists were all drawn by hand onto the opening page of each month and I arranged everything to fit in the space available. It was also a very short list compared to the list I use today, so there’s nothing that says your list has to be as long as the one I use. If you make a list, make sure that it works with your goals and the items you want to track. 

My first household tending list - January 2021

By December it had evolved to this

In January, I started my new Happy Planner® and was surprised to see that the format of the opening page for each month had changed significantly and that my old checklist layout didn’t work anymore. So, I rearranged the list and again drew it by hand, but because it was no longer on a dot-grid paper, drawing it out took significantly longer than the old design and I abandoned that effort the very next month. Instead, I scanned the January list before I filled in all the text, and now I just run the planner page through my printer. I’ve used a similar technique for other pages in my Happy Planner (more on that in an upcoming episode!), and the printer handles the disc-punched pages just fine. I’d also like to note that I do use a “White Out” correction tape on a small section of the page, and since my printer is a laser printer, it prints over it just fine. I do not know how an inkjet printer will react to the whiteout, so your mileage may vary. I’ve linked both my printer and the correction tape below.

The blank file that I print onto my planner page

Add Amazon links to Happy Planner, my printer, favorite pen, and correction tape. Creating your checklist in a bullet journal or notebook can be fun if you like to do such things…I’m a list-maker at heart, and I love any excuse to make a list! But for those of you who aren’t, or you’d like a quick start on a list of your own, I’ve included a link to a blank version of my checklist below. I’ve offered a bundle that includes a JPEG, PDF, and PSD (Photoshop) version. If you have any questions about how I use it, please feel free to drop me a line using the email form on the right, leave a comment below, or even contact me through our Facebook page or MMC Chat group. 

Download the Checklist Bundle

Products I've mentioned in this article:

 

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A Simple Cleaning Checklist for Anyone

Hi there, it’s Christen - Happy Monday! It is springtime, which always makes me feel perky and motivated. This year, I set a goal to manage my household more efficiently. Effective communication with my husband, Travis, has been a challenge due to our schedules. I wanted to find a way to make it easier for both of us to access important household information without having to call each other during work hours. I also wanted Travis to have the knowledge at his fingertips to effectively manage the household without me guiding or micro-managing him. I decided that a “Home Binder” was necessary, and set a goal to create one as part of my Cultivate What Matters tending lists and 2022 goals. I may have mentioned my home binder and some of its contents on the podcast a few times and hope to provide an update on my progress here on the blog soon. Be on the look out for that!

Among the sections that provide helpful information in the binder is one for household maintenance. By maintenance, I mean cleaning, seasonal care, repairs and services. This time of year, I have many of these processes in mind, especially the routine and seasonal cleaning. As a newly married couple, we have learned what each other’s strengths are and where we can give each other support. Although my husband knows how to clean up after himself, he does not know all the ins and outs of sanitizing and deep cleaning. I wanted to give him an idea of when each of these tasks should be completed, and with what chemicals and tools. 

Getting married and some drastic changes in my work schedule has changed most of my routines. I simply can’t count on using one of my days off to do all the laundry, cleaning and meal prepping and still make it to bed at a decent hour. I went back and forth trying to set up a new routine and struggled with sticking with it. Thankfully, my husband and daughter are willing to help around the house, and the chores do not all fall on me. 

In order to ensure that all the necessary tasks are completed in a timely manner, I decided to compile a master cleaning list. Since my brain has been conditioned to think in monthly, weekly, and daily tasks thanks to my Cultivate What Matters tending list, I decided to drop my previous weekly cleaning schedule and opt for a more flexible checklist. 

In the free download, you will find a cleaning checklist broken down into the three groups outlined below:

• Daily - Action items that should be completed every single day, like washing your dishes, taking the garbage out, making your bed, and tidying up.

• Weekly - Action items that need to be performed once per week and can either be done on a specific day or any time during the week. For example, the garbage can needs to be rolled out to the curb every week on the same day, and you will be sorry if you missed it. Vacuuming however can probably happen only once per week and you can often live with going one day longer if needed.

• Monthly - Action items that only have to be completed once per month, usually around the same time each month. For example, it's a good idea to dust the ceiling fans, but no one is going to suffer if you don’t do it exactly on the “first Friday of the month.”

My cleaning schedule might not be frequent enough for you, or might even be more than you want to commit to, but it should at least give you some ideas on how to create your own schedule. As I mentioned above, I’ve linked a free one to download for your own use - I encourage you to make it your own! I saved it as a WORD .doc so that you can edit it to your liking. Is there something that I left off? I would love to know what you think! Please don’t forget to come over to our Facebook chat group, and be sure to listen to the podcast on Wednesday when we’ll continue the conversation.

This week on the podcast, we talked about clutter and its tendency to collect in our homes. We had some fun laughs about the reality of our messes, too! I was inspired by our talk and the information provided from my www.Clutterbug.me results. I wanted to share my before and after pictures of my Clutterbug project – my kitchen.

Travis and I still had a box in our kitchen from when we moved almost 10 months ago. I was fed up with looking at that box one day, and unloaded it onto the kitchen island. The idea was to identify what was in the box and then put the items away, but I ran out of time to find a new home for these last straggling items, so they stayed in that spot. Now they were sitting on the catch-all, an already cluttered problem area of my home. 

The clutter got so bad, we could no longer work at the kitchen island, and complacency had become the norm. Each day, one more thing wound up on the island and did not leave. My husband even started leaving the groceries out; instead of putting a can in the pantry while unloading the groceries, the can would find its new home on the island. 

Clutter stacking up on the kitchen island, inside the cabinets, and "the box".

Since the Clutterbug quiz suggested storing things in clear containers, I got these acrylic bins from amazon. Unfortunately, I did not measure my cabinet space (whoops), and the bins are too big for my pantry. I was able to use a few of them around the kitchen, and I will get some smaller ones for the pantry. I can use the remaining large ones in my craft room. 

This week I worked a lot of overtime at work, so I haven’t had as much energy or time to dedicate to my organizing. I did however decide to organize the cups though. The clutter was persistently on my mind after I had mentioned them in an earlier blog. The nice thing about spring cleaning is that it doesn't have to be done all at once. In fact, the best thing to do is one small area or task at a time. There are a few areas that got worked over that I didn’t capture with my camera – mainly the pantry. I tossed out a lot of half eaten cracker sleeves, stale cookies, old protein bars, and random odds and ends that were taking up space. 

I'm happy the way the catch all areas turned out.

For the near future, I have plans to clear out the utensil drawer and utilize the empty cabinet space above the fridge, but I know that it will be little by little. I don’t want to try and do a total overhaul on the kitchen all at once, which would wreck a major working area in our home. Next up after the kitchen will be my dressing table where there are a slew of cosmetics, hair products, earrings, and misc. items strewn about. I am really looking forward to that much needed project.

Have you had a chance to check out the Clutterbug quiz to see what type of Clutterbug you are? I’d love to hear about your style! Maybe you can share some tips in the comments! 

Heard It on the Podcast - March 30, 2022

 

Did you miss a link we mentioned on the podcast? Here's a quick post we'll do every Wednesday to share any links or information from the podcast. We'll also keep a running post on the "Links from the Podcast" tab so you can refer back to any previous episode. Here's the links for this week:

30-MAR-2022

S2E14: What Kind of Clutterbug Are You?

• What Kind of Clutterbug Are You? (Quiz):  https://clutterbug.me
• Totally Tiffany: https://totally-tiffany.com
• Thistle Creative Reuse, Denton, Texas: https://thistlecreativereuse.com

* Please note, as an Amazon Affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.