Cracking down

Finally really cracking down on organizing the house and getting rid of excess and clutter. I have a really pretty set of crystal-ware that Philip got from a house he was cleaning out for a former landlord (it was headed to the dump when he "saved" it!). I also got a set of real silver silverware from that same place. THAT I'm keeping. The crystal? So far, it's been unboxed, washed, and collected dust. We're just not a crystal sort of family. We're more mason-jar and plastic cups. I've had delusions of us becoming a more fancy-pants sort of household, but I've finally accepted that my tastes, and his, are more earthy and tuned for stuff that can be used daily. If someone wants to judge us for lacking fine china and such, then we don't need those people in our lives. I don't foresee either of us ever holding fancy dinner parties for work colleagues, etc either.
  So I'm starting my "crusade" on a double-front. One front is clothing/laundry. Getting all laundry caught up, sorting out unused and outgrown clothing, and organizing dressers and closets. The kids' room is done, and I'm working with the kids to make sure they are putting their clothes away correctly and keeping them neat. Jeans are hanging (Need to get more hangars!), shorts, t-shirts, and everything else in the dresser is being rolled military-style. Rolling is neat and conserves space. I'm not gonna go all "boot-camp" mom on my kids, but before I hit their room, they had clothes ALL OVER their room... in the toybox, under the bed, stuffed in drawers. Now, everything in the room fits them, fits in a set spot, and is neatly put away. I put everything away the first time, making them both watch. The second time clothes needed put away, I watched them each put their clothes away. This last time, I let them put them away all on their own. They SEEM excited to put them away all neat and tidy, but I don't see that lasting long. I'll have to keep double-checking for awhile, I'm sure.
  The second "front" I'm hitting is the kitchen/dining area. In all honesty, that room is fairly hopeless in being "done" until we put in new cabinets, flooring, etc. What I'm doing for now is sorting out stuff we don't use, or have an excess of. Quesadilla-maker? Keep! We actually do use it, and love it. Second set of pots? Gone. We do use them, but that ends up meaning we have a HUGE pile of dishes to wash. Time to cut back I have 2 sets of mixing bowls: glass, and plastic. The plastic will probably get moved to the "craft" stuff or sold. Haven't decided yet.
  I've been finding a lot of stuff that I just don't know why I've been carting it around. Time to get rid of it! I know we have at least one more major move in our future. Regardless of whether that lands us in Texas or Nevada, I refuse to need a 26' Uhaul ever again!

Lice!

So... since I'm dealing with it right now (for the 3rd or 4th time...), I thought I'd share how I deal with lice. I tried following what the box kits say to do, and after a couple hundred dollars spent on that crap, let me say it's not overly effective.
Needed:

• metal-toothed lice/nit comb. NOT plastic. Those are crap.
• Conditioner. Just buy a cheap bottle of anything. I use Coconut Suave conditioner.
• Apple cider vinegar (ACV) and a pitcher or large cup.

Day 1: Shampoo hair... Use a lice-killing shampoo if you want, or Dawn, or regular shampoo... Whatever. Slather on a handful or so of conditioner (depending on length of hair! Shorter hair won't need that much.) Brush it out, to get all the tangles out, then section it off into halves or quarters. Use the nit/lice comb, and comb carefully from scalp to tip of the hair. Rinse OFTEN. I do this with my daughter sitting in the tub. If any of the damn things get caught in the teeth, use a pin or needle to clear them out. Carefully comb the entire head. Rinse thoroughly, then rinse with the ACV. I have a pitcher that I fill with water, then add a splash of ACV. I pour it over my daughter's head, let it sit for a bit, then lightly rinse with plain water.
Repeat this at LEAST every 2 days. I suggest every other day, though.
Why this works better than the kits and shampoos: The chemical method is repeated every 7 days. They warn against doing it more frequently. The reproductive cycle of a louse is 3 days. That means, in 7 days, the lice have gone through 2 reproductive cycles. Yikes! My way catches them before they lay more eggs, assuming you miss any nits in your combing. And you will, it's no big deal, it doesn't mean you did a bad job.   The conditioner method works in 2 ways: the conditioner makes the hair easier to comb, AND its so thick that the lice can't move. They're trapped for the comb to scrape them out of the hair. By doing it at least every 2 days, you catch the newly hatched lice before they lay eggs.
Why the ACV? My aunt and grandma swear an ACV rinse will prevent you from getting lice. It worked last year, but my daughter whined so much about the smell (which goes away when the hair dries) that I slacked on it. Other people claim it works for repelling lice as well. Whether it's true, or just coincidence, I do it anyways.

So that works for the hair. Now what about bedding, toys, etc? Now, I've read the hysterical responses that  are suggested by the "lice industry" and many other people. I vacuum the carpet. Bedding gets washed and dried (probably needed it anyways, right?) and stuffed animals get run through the drier. That's it. No insane cleaning spree. In the many times my daughter has come home with lice, I've gotten them once. Heck, this last time, she slept in my bed with me before I realized she had them, and my head's still "safe". I do check everyone's head, and my husband checks mine. I just realized that there's no use in freaking. Adult lice will die within 2 days without a food source.

And that's how I deal with it. Keep calm, and lice comb on! lol

Worst blogger ever?

I may be the worst blogger ever! lol I have been doing some small projects, and will go over a few of them more in-depth, but for now, here's a link to my Pinterest board on things I've tried from there! I've also been getting back into crocheting a little. Made a bunch of "dice bags" and now have no idea what I'm going to do with them. I'll include some pics on that in a later post, though! A friend suggested using Etsy to sell some stuff, and I may look into that. I enjoy making the laundry detergent, but don't need to make it very often since it takes so long to go through! So I may look into selling some either locally or online as well.

That's it for now, and I will make an effort to do better posting!

"Grab and go" travel bag

I have something in my house that I haven't seen on any other site yet, and it's so simple and useful I thought I would share. I can it a "grab and go" bag. Inside of it, I keep the cords and adapters We would use while traveling that go to the various electronics we might take with us. Right now it has an extra ipod shuffle charger, 2 extra UBS charging cord that fits the various e-readers in our house (a Sony e-reader, a Kindle keyboard, and 2 Kindle Fires) as well as both my phone and Philip's, 2 USB wall plugin adapters, a car USB adapter, and a travel surge protector (that has 3 regular plugs and 2 USB). It usually also has at least 1 battery charger and some extra rechargeable batteries as well. Depending on where we're going, I can also toss in all 4 e-readers and my camera. I personally use a small backpack for it. Because we usually have at least 2 cords to everything (somehow) or cords that can be used for multiple devices, this works really well for us. Keeping it all in a small backpack means it's all kept together and easily grabbed on our way out the door, and doesn't get left in the car where the heat can mess something up. Since we've started taking the dogs with us more, I may add in an extra leash as well.

Since we don't do a lot of long-distance travel, it may seem odd that I have this put together, or that it wouldn't get much use. It actually gets used a lot. Whenever we have appointments that may mean a wait in a waiting room, I take it with us, and make sure the readers are all in it. I don't always make sure they are charged, though. Oops. Yeah, I'm an imperfect mom, I admit it, and I'm ok with that lol. All we have to do is find a plugin and we're set, though. The battery charger is kept in there mostly so I know where it is. I have another one I keep in my desk drawer as well.

Does anyone else have something like this? What do you keep in it?

Simple organization tip!

So, I went to Dollar General with a simple goal in mind: finding myself some sort of cheap small tubs to organize the hall closet's piles of junk. In one corner was a pile of bar soaps, with a mound of spare toothbrushes and extra toothpaste next to it. Shaving kit bags were piled on the top shelf filled with extra disposable razors, and there was a large bin in the top of the kids' closet with even more spare toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well as disposable travel toothbrushes (just add water... toothpaste is already applied in a powder form) and hotel-sized soaps and shampoo/conditioner/lotion bottles. mixed in among the entire mess were the few perfume/cologne bottles we own, and a few samples of others. It was 2+ shelves worth of MESS. So, at Dollar General, I found some "shoe-box" sized tubs for $1 each. I got six, and only used 4 in the closet. I even condensed the hair clipper blades (and one of the clippers) down into a tub with my razors. I wish I had some before pics! I didn't even think about it, though! 

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!

Tired!

EXHAUSTED! Finally caught up on my homework. Garage is almost civilized again. Kids are sweeping and picking up trash in there now. The dogs kinda trashed it while we were all sick. Bathroom.... is almost done. The toilet is defunkified, and man it was AWFUL... has been since we moved in: black hard water deposits, for instance... It's now an acceptably white toilet, thanks to baking soda, lemon juice, vinegar, comet, toilet bowl cleaner, a scrub brush, a steel wool pad, and a couple pairs of gloves. I said it was bad! To further my insanity, I got most of the tub cleaned before getting distracted by how horribly gunky the water handles were, and the white water deposits all over the gold (GAG!!!!) faucets. Yes, replacing all the gold crap IS on the to-do list... Someday. I was planning on just replacing them, but they were SO funky. So I sent Marissa after a flathead screwdriver, popped off the caps, and pulled off the handles. They are now crystal-clear hunks of cheap plastic again! Still on tonight's to-do list:

• Finish the tub (I ran outta hot water. Boo!)
• Clean the bathroom sink, and try not to rip the funky handles and faucet off of that!
• Bathroom floor, and then the bathroom will be done! Yay!
• Get a couple loads of laundry finished up and maybe folded.

I'll probably actually only get the tub finished.... and pretend I'm too busy to do the rest tomorrow! lol Baby steps towards a more motivated me, right?