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I’ve blogged about this before, but every fall my allergies get pretty bad. I can’t stand the fragrance in laundry detergent or cleaning products. I began cleaning the bathrooms with hydrogen peroxide, which was great except that I had to be SO careful not to bleach my clothes or towels. I’ve experimented with making my own cleaning products, but biggest success has been with making my own laundry deterent.

Here’s the recipe.

1 Bar Fels Naptha ($1.19 at my local Kroger’s)
1 Cup Borax ($4.99 for a 55 oz. box on Amazon)
1 Cup Washing Soda ($4.34 for a 76 oz. box on Amazon)

All of these are found at my local Kroger’s in the laundry aisle. Grate the bar of Fels Naptha. Mix the grated Fels Naptha with the borax and washing soda. Use 1/4 cup per load of regular laundry.

According to an online ounces to cups converter, this recipe makes enough for approximately 10 loads of laundry, and you’d still have 5.875 cups of washing soda and 8.5 cups of borax leftover.

If you made 6 batches it would cost approimately $16.47 giving you enough for 60 loads of laundry. That comes out to 27.45 cents a load, and I’m pretty sure Amazon’s prices are higher than Kroger’s, so it may actually be less. And, in making six batches you’d still have .875 cups of washing soda and 3.5 cups of borax leftover!

I sure hope my calculations are correct. I probably shoul have asked David to write this post for me! He’d have a great spreadsheet or chart or something. And he probably knows the formula to convert ounces to cups by heart.

Anyway, I’ve saved a lot of money by making my own laundry detergent, and as people with chronic illnesses, we are always looking for ways to save money. It works for me! Hope it works for you, too!

Love,
A Young Wife

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Page 194 of the September issue of Family Circle says that a recent study found that people who chew gum regularly report less overall anxiety. Darn. I knew I missed chewing gum!

Check out these blog posts for recipes for making your own seasoning mixes. I’m totally going to start making my own taco seasoning and BBQ seasoning.

How does chronic illness affect intimacy in marriage?

This post and several other sources have got me thinking about switching to vinegar, borax and baking soda for cleaning products. My question is, does this sort of house cleaning method save money, or is it just environmentally friendly? What cleaning products do you use? Would you consider giving up 409?

This blog brings out the shabby chic lover in me! I love the Gooseberry Patch catalog. Sigh. Maybe someday David will come around to my kind of decorating. Eh, well, I guess I wouldn’t like him quite as much if he like antiques and lace.

Okay, now for some real housewife blogging.

David soaks in a hot bath 2-3 times a day because of his arthritis so I do a lot of extra laundry. Not just towels. David doesn’t like to put “dirty” clothes on after he gets out of the bath. He puts on fresh clothes each time. Here’s what I like for laundry.

Tide with Baking Soda with White Lilac fragrance. It’s one of the few fragrances I can stand. It’s hard to find around here. I usually find it at Target. Sometimes Albertson’s carries it.

Our laundry room is at the top of the stairs.

Wal-Mart sells the Simplicity brand. It’s hypo-allergenic, fragrance free, phosphate free, non-toxic and biodegradable. I use this because it’s cheap, and it doesn’t bother me when my allergies flare up in the fall.

Having the laundry room upstairs is great. 95% of the laundry gets put away upstairs anyway.

I don’t like the huge containers of laundry detergent with a spigot. I know it’s cheaper, but they’re so heavy! As you can see, all my laundry supplies are stored over my head. Plus, I hate having detergent drip all over the living room. I just watch for good sales on the smaller containers and use coupons.

The drawstring bag is for cleaning rags so they don't touch the rest of the laundry.

For fabric softener, I use store brand fragrance free sheets. Thanks to Kerri I’m going to try using vinegar as fabric softener when I run out of sheets. I don’t use bleach on our laundry. If I need to get whites white again, I use lemon juice or White Brite.

Anyone else have laundry tips?

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I just had to share these with you.

Would you let an atheist care for you pet? Shouldn’t you instead try to witness to these people?

I don’t think they were thinking about the lyrics when they wrote this song. It kind of makes Jesus sound like a pervert.

Is chronic illness taboo among your friends and family?

Methotrexate appears safe for long term use!

And a study shows that people with arthritis are twice as likely to have depression.

Here’s a few tips to help you save on laundry costs.

What’s your favorite Bible verse?

And last, but certainly not least The Government Can.

Love,
A Young Wife

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Here’s how a good day goes for me.

1. Wake up to Henry putting his front paws and head on me. He has so much energy in the morning! Get up. Get dressed before going downstairs. Start a load of towels.
2. Let Henry outside. Fill his food and water bowls.
3. Breakfast. Check email, Facebook, Twitter, and bank accounts.
4. Let Henry back in. Straighten the house. Put away books, magazines, clothes, shoes, throw away any trash, make bed, etc.
5. Dust.
6. Clean a bathroom.
7. Move towels to dryer. Start a load of whites.
8. Lunch. Let Henry outside again. Blog and/or read other people’s blogs while eating. I also try to read the Bible online at this time. It’s kind of weird, but I’ve had a hard time figuring out when to have my quiet time since I’ve been married. This seems to work for me. I’m on the computer anyway. Might as well incorporate the Bible in there.
9. Workout.
10. Vacuum the entire house. Literally. All 2200 square feet. The tile, the wood floors. I vacuum it all.
11. Call pharmacy to order refills of David’s meds.
12. Check mail. Stack new medical bills in pile in office. Read an article in a magazine.
13. Start dinner.
14. David comes home. Dinner is ready, but he needs to take a hot bath before he can eat. Read another article and get on Facebook while I wait.
15. We eat dinner and talk. I clean up the kitchen while David plays with Henry.
16. We watch a movie. Yippee!
17. As I’m about to step in the shower. I realize we have no towels. I didn’t hear the dryer buzz because it went off while I was listening to my Ipod while working out. Unload dryer. Put whites in dryer.
18. Get ready for bed. Read a chapter of a book before turning off the lamp.
19. The dryer buzzes just as I’m falling asleep because I forgot to turn the buzzer off.

I love those days where I don’t have to go to the store, the doctor’s office, the vet or the post office. It happens maybe once a week.

Here’s how today went.

1. Wake up late. David informs me that he’s working from home today. “NOOO!!!” I moan. “I’m not going to get anything done today!” He tells me he loves me, too.
2. Take care of Henry.
3. Eat breakfast while listening to Henry bark at himself in the mirrors in our workout room. We tend to keep the door to that room shut.
4. Check email and Facebook before I have to give the office up to David so he can work. (It’s not like I don’t have my own laptop and desk.)
5. Cut coupons. Go through my coupon organizer and get rid of the expired coupons. This took a ridiculous amount of time.
6. Start a load of laundry.
7. We eat lunch. David convinces me to watch a show with him.
8. I finally realize I need to put the washed clothes in the dryer.
9. Clean up the kitchen.
10. Look through the freezer and realize I still have leftovers from David’s birthday party last October. Thow out a lot of food in freezer.
11. Make grocery list.
12. Unload dryer. Start another load.
13. Get on computer. Check four blogs. Read Bible online.
14. Get out ironing board. Iron three shirts.
15. Mother-in-law calls. She and sister-in-law #3 need to come get something from us and want to bring dinner. How can I resist?
16. Unload dryer. Start another load.
17. Make a “quick” run to the grocery store. It wasn’t as quick as I thought it would be. MIL beats me home. David has started eating the delicious Cristina’s food without me, not that I blame him.
18. After hanging out with in-laws, go to ironing board only to discover that iron is no longer working. Decide to watch a movie with David instead.
19. Shower. Pack David’s lunch for tomorrow.
20. Blog. Remember I still need to unload dryer.

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Hello. I am a young wife. This is how I clean house. There’s lots of different methods out there. This is what works for me.

There is a difference between straightening and cleaning. Straightening the house makes it orderly and neat. Cleaning the house makes it clean. This is one reason why you can clean house all day, but it looks like you haven’t done anything. Another reason might be that your dog chews up pillows and drags the stuffing all over the house.

I have to straighten the house, as well as clean, every day. Straightening includes putting shoes in the closet, picking up trash and dishes and making the bed. Cleaning includes dusting, vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing toilets and showers and washing windows.

I clean my house from top to bottom. I dust first, starting with the ceiling fans. Then I wipe down my countertops, kitchen sink and stovetop. Then I vacuum. In the bathroom, I clean the sinks and showers and toilets before I sweep and mop or wash the bath mats.

Please note, it’s rare that I get all of that done in one day. Maybe day one you could dust and wipe the counters. Day two clean the bathroom and day three sweep and mop. Some people like to focus on cleaning one room at a time, but for me, if I’ve got my Swiffer Duster out, I may as well dust everything all at once.

Typically I do a load of laundry every day, so I usually don’t have a designated laundry day. Also, I clean with rags, not paper towels. I save tons of money that way. I really love the microfiber cloths made for cleaning mirrors and glass.

I do iron. David has to wear a long sleeved dress shirt and tie to work every day. Brooks Brothers shirts are a lifesaver, but not all of his shirts are from Brooks Brothers, and ironing saves money over dry cleaning. I motivate myself to iron by renting a chick flick that I tell myself I can only watch while I’m ironing. Or, if it’s a day when I need to iron, but I keep putting it off, I tell myself I can’t have any more Diet Coke until I start ironing. That always works!

One more tip. I use the Pledge Fabric Sweeper to get Henry’s hair off of the upholstery. I can fill the sweeper by cleaning the couch one time, so I had to find a way to make it reusable. I tried prying the rollers apart and dumping out the hair, but it didn’t work afterwards. I’ve found that if you take a butter knife and run it down the crack, the hair comes out and the sweeper still works.

So, what’s your method? Any tips or tricks?

Hey, what’s the best way to clean a shower with two tile walls and two glass walls? I can get the tile to look good, or the glass to look good, but never both. As you might guess, the master shower is my most dreaded chore. What’s your least favorite chore?

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