Whew!

What a fun evening! Had strawberry shortcake with the kids.... A first for them! Then, I had fun showing them how Ivory soap puffs up if you microwave it. It cools off really quick, and then crumbles into powder really easily. We're low on body wash, so I melted the powder into a pot of water (roughly 4 cups of water? IDK, I just put some water in the pot.) and added what was left over from my last attempt at body wash. The last time, it came out chunky and snot-textured. After some reading, I realized this means I didn't melt the soap well enough and there wasn't enough water. That batch is cooling right now. I'll know tomorrow how it comes out!

I was inspired by the Ivory, and looked up if Fels-Naptha soap would react the same way in the microwave. It does, kinda. It's not as dramatic a PUFF (it ends up looking like slightly over-risen bread) and it takes a LONG time to cool down, but IMO, it's worth it. After it cooled off, I broke it into small pieces and run it through my (tiny) food processor to powder it. It doesn't crumble quite as easily as the Ivory. As I was powdering it, I slowly added in the other ingredients for making my laundry detergent (super washing soda and 20 Mule Team Borax) and then mixed them up really well when I was done. Still have Borax left over from the FIRST batch of laundry detergent I made in January. I've made 3 batches so far this year, only needing to buy the fels-naptha for the second batch. So far this year, counting this batch, we've spent roughly $20 on laundry detergent, and I think this will last us until August, at least. Still had about 1/3 of the last batch left, so maybe a little longer than that even. Sure beats the hell out of spending $15-$20 a MONTH on laundry detergent! Considering making some to sell, but I am so getting a cheap-o microwave to use out in the garage and a bigger food processor if I do! The smell is HELLA potent.

I can't remember if I posted about it or not, but Philip and I got the guts ripped out of the old console TV we got. We were also given another one with a swiveling base. Not sure what we're gonna do with #2! I'm thinking shelf, but not sure just yet. Need to get sanding on #1 and figure out what colors I want to paint it. Debating between a medium stone-grey or a more brown-grey color, and no idea on what color trim yet.

Hmm... I should start making this blog a once a week goal, at least to start out with!