Recipes for Homemade Cleaners

Cleaning Recipes I've "borrowed" from my friends Mary and Cynthia

April 22, 2010 at 4:14 pm

Dishwasher detergent
1 part Borax
1 part Washing Soda
1 part Cascade complete powder
Mix and use 1 tablespoon per load! I use white vinegar in place of jet dry and it works great! It is green and saves tons of money!

"409"
In a spray bottle, place a funnel and add 1 teaspoon Borax and 2 Tbsp white vinegar. Add 1 cup hot water and shake a little to mix. Fill almost to fill-line with cool tap water and add 1/8 cup Dawn dish detergent at the end. DO NOT SHAKE! It will diffuse. I use this as my all-purpose cleaner! It took out vomit from my kid on my carpet and chair!!! It kills germs and cleans cupboards and walls. I even used it as an awesome stain remover on my girls' clothes!

"Comet"
1 cup Baking Soda
1/4 cup Borax
Mix well and store in a sugar shaker. Non- abrasive! Cleans all kinds of gunk out of tubs, showers, stainless steel sinks...etc :)

"Windex"
1 part white vinegar
1 part rubbing alcohol
1 part water
Mix in spray bottle and use as windex. It will leave smudges that will evaporate right before your eyes, so don't be disgusted if it doesn't seem to be drying clear at first.

Homemade laundry soap
I grated bar of Fels-Naptha laundry soap
I cup washing soda
1/2 cup Borax
Grate bar of soap, add it to 4 cups hot water and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until soap is dissolved and melted. Fill a 5 gallon pail halfway with hot tap water, add melted soap, washing soda, and borax. Stir til dissolved. Fill bucket rest of the way with hot tap water. Cover with lid and allow to set overnight. In the morning, stir and fill a clean laundry container half full with soap- fill the rest of the way with water. Use 5/8 cup with top loader machines, and 1/4 cup with front loaders.
You can add 10-15 drops of essential oils (EO) if you want scent.
I paid $1.35 for the Fels-Naptha bar, under $3 for the washing soda, and under $3 for the borax. I have a ton of the last 2 to make lots more soap. This recipe makes approximately 180 loads and cost me under $3...

Toilet cleaner:
equal parts Borax and Baking Soda (I fill up my container) a few droppers full of Grapefruit Seed Crush (GSC), a dropper full of Eucalyptus EO, shake it up. Use 1/8 of a cup (coffee scoop thingy from Walmart) in toilet bowl and swich andscrub with brush.

Counter Wipes (like Clorox or Lysol):
Cut paper towel roll in half. 2 Cups or so water, two droppers full of GSC, 20-30 drops of EO of your choice (I usually do 1 dropper full of Eucalyptus and 10 or so of spearmint cuz I like those two together). Pour water over the halves (in their containers, of course). Take out cardboard roll after saturated and pull from the middle. Makes great hand wipes, safe for skin!

Counter spray:
Fill bottle with water, 1 dropper full of GSC and 10-15 drops EO of your choice. I like Lemon or Peppermint

Parents write the darnedest things

Parents write the darnedest things

February 25, 2010 at 2:29 pm

I don't know what year this was published, or even what paper, but I came across this article I'd saved out of a newspaper. The story is from Leesville, Louisiana.
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"My son is under the doctor's care and should not take P.E. today," one parent wrote. "Please execute him."

That death sentence was inadvertently recommended in a note which a parent who was in a hurry or possessed an uncertain vocabulary wrote to excuse a child's absence from school in Vernon Parish.

Duplicated copies of some of the parish's more astonishing excuse notes were given out at a School Board meeting this month.

"Some of them were obviously made up by students," Richard Carter, assistant principal of Leesville High School, said Wednesday. But most, he said, were probably legitimate excuses written by parents in the rural northwest Louisiana parish.

In these samples, names were replaced with either Fred or Mary to protect innocent and guilty alike.

One parent appeared to have taken drastic action: "Please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot."

Another had a more comprehensive request: "Please excuse Fred for being. It was his father's fault."

"Please ackuse Fred being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33," wrote a parent who lives by an unusual calendar.

"Mary was absent from school yesterday as she was having a gangover," wrote one who apparently expected the school to be tolerant of social follies.

"Mary could not come to school today because she was bother by very close veins," wrote one parent.

"Fred has an acre in his side," said another.

And in an extreme case of people losing things, "Please excuse Fred from P.E. for a few days. He fell yesterday out of a tree and misplaced his hip."

In a confusion of office work and medical terms, one parent wrote: "Please excuse Mary from Jim yesterday. She is administrating."

And several had a racier tone:

"Please excuse Fred for being absent. He had a cold and could not breed well."

"Please excuse Mary. She has been sick and under the doctor."

"Please excuse Mary from being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps."

Quotes about Love

Quotes about Love

February 24, 2010 at 8:17 pm

These are all quotes I came across in the nearly 8 months I was separated from my best friend, my husband, in 2007. Knowing his love was steady and sure and ever-growing all the while was an immense comfort. I think I like the first quote best because, even though it isn't about lovers, it is about best friends, and when you have someone who is both that's even better.

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.
~Hobbes, from Calvin & Hobbes

The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.
~Henry Ward Beecher

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention.
~Rick Warren

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
~Agnes Repplier

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
~Sophocles

The more I give to thee, the more I have...
~Shakespeare

It is the true season of love
when we know that
we alone can love;
that no one could ever have loved before us
and that no one
will ever love in the same way
after us.
~Goethe

But love...is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.
~Nicholas Sparks

We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigue with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness.
~Ellen Goodman

"I love my husband! AML&LFYFE
My favoritest and best friend ever! My man, My hero. We are no longer two but are one. " <3 div="">

UNALIENABLE vs. INALIENABLE

[The following was not written by me, but I found it today and wanted to share. You can read the rest of the article, which includes several quotes from different court cases, here. I only wish it had addressed our God-given unalienable rights to FAMILY.]

UNALIENABLE: The state of a thing or right which cannot be sold.

January 21, 2010 at 2:22 pm

Things which are not in commerce, as public roads, are in their nature unalienable. Some things are unalienable, in consequence of particular provisions in the law forbidding their sale or transfer, as pensions granted by the government.The natural rights of life and liberty are UNALIENABLE.

~ Bouviers Law Dictionary 1856 Edition

"Unalienable: incapable of being alienated, that is, sold and transferred."

~ Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, page 1523

You can not surrender, sell or transfer unalienable rights, they are a gift from the creator to the individual and can not under any circumstances be surrendered or taken. All individual's have unalienable rights.

INALIENABLE:

Inalienable rights: Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights.

~ Morrison v. State, Mo. App., 252 S.W.2d 97, 101.

You can surrender, sell or transfer inalienable rights if you consent either actually or constructively. Inalienable rights are not inherent in man and can be alienated by government. Persons have inalienable rights. Most state constitutions recognize only inalienable rights.

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,  that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

~ DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

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Some Great Quotes

Some great quotes I found online...

January 1, 2010 at 10:30 pm

at this website: http://www.texaslonghorn.com/main.cfm

Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

H. L. Mencken 1880-1956

Legalized Theft - if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.

Robert LeFevre

Education is useless without the Bible.

Noah Webster

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true

Eric Hoffer (1898 - 1983)

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

Theodore Roosevelt

Son, always invest in land and cattle. The government can't print more land and a good cow will have a new calf every year.

Frank Dickinson

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

Robert Heinlein

Beware of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.

Robert A. Heinlein

If stupid was fruit, Washington D.C. would be a spoiled orchard!

Henry Lamb

Communism ~~ the government owns the means and method of production. In fascism the government controls the means and method of production.
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

P.J. O'Rourke

No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law.

Robert Heinlien

Government does not solve problems - it subsidizes them.

Ronald Reagan

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

Ambrose Redmoon (James Neil Hollingworth)

Starting again

It's time for me to start using this blog again. I need a safe place to vent and share my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. That was my original intent, but it ended up only being "fluff" pieces, which is fine, but doesn't really speak from my heart, you know? I'm not sure what I want to write about next, but figured I need to start getting myself in the habit of writing. Hopefully I can do this at least once a week, if not more. I do enjoy reading my friend's blogs.

Window Painting Tips

Originally posted on facebook

Window painting tips

November 28, 2009 at 10:37 pm

*I may add to this as I think of things*

It's best to have clean glass. I have painted over the occasional corner cobweb and dust, but it's nicer w/out crud.

For inside windows (or weather-protected outside) I use tempera paint. NOT the powdered mix-it-up-yourself kind. Most art supply stores should carry some brand.

The bare minimum colors you should have:

• White
• Black
• Brown (you can make brown w/ red, blue, and yellow, but it doesn't always turn out as nicely)
• Blue
• Red
• Green (it's fairly easy to make a nice green w/ blue and yellow, but this is a color you'll use a lot at Christmastime)
• Yellow

Colors that are nice to buy already made, but not necessary:

• Purple
• Orange
• Flesh

Colors I typically make by mixing one or more colors together:

• various shades of browns and tans (Brown w/ white, black, & or yellow)
• various shades of blue (blue w/ white or black)
• various shades of green (green w/ more blue or yellow, white or black)
• pink
• flesh (usually white w/ a bit of brown and a drop of red to pinken it up)
• reds (brown, black)

Color mixing is lots of fun. If you only need a little bit, you can mix in one of the paint bottle lids. If you do this long enough, you'll eventually have empty (or nearly empty) bottles and you can turn those into new colors. I've been saving plastic peanut butter containers b/c they are easy to hold, wide opening for mixing and dipping the brush into (you have to use the lid of the bottles once the level gets down a bit), but any small plastic container will work. I bought some of the Ziploc plastic containers, and they work okay, but aren't airtight, so the paint dried out from one year to the next, and after 2 years, it's kind of brittle, so beware of cheap stuff!

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For painting outside, you can buy special sign painters paint which is waterproof once it's dry. Nice colors, coverage, and texture, but is more expensive than tempera. Also, it's the same basic composition (latex acrylic) as house paint, so that is what I've started buying, at least for the high-use colors (white, blue, green) because it's so much cheaper! I just bought red today, but it doesn't cover as well. The major drawback to using this kind of paint is that it doesn't wash off with just water. It needs to be scraped off the windows.

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What to paint? Choose a picture/drawing of something you feel comfortable drawing. You can get ideas from greeting cards, wrapping paper, internet, coloring books, etc. The easiest way to do this is to use a black permanent marker and draw the outline, so it looks like a coloring book. Then fill it in.

(added Nov 2010) When filling in the spaces, it's important to make the strokes smooth and go from one side of the space to the other.  As long as the paint is wet (but it does dry quickly), it's fairly easy to go back over it to make it look nice.  You can also use different strokes to add "texture" to a section.  For instance, if you want a fluffy lamb, start at the bottom of the section and make swirly strokes kind of in rows, making the one above it go over it slightly.  (If you start at the top, it will look like the lamb is standing on a vent!)  Same for straw or pine needles - make short straight strokes starting at the outer edge, and move back in and go just over where you started the previous strokes, and then the last ones would be butted against a line.

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Once it's all painted, I then go back over all the black lines w/ black paint. THEN I go around the outside of the whole picture with white. The white really makes it stand out (sort of like a vinyl cling), especially at night.

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Brushes:
The typical pointy ended brushes are necessary for lines and filling in small places and you may find you like them for other things, too. I have two different sizes. Don't get these too floppy, though (like water color brushes) or you won't have much control.

My favorite brush is a fan brush. They cover really well, or can be used to cover very lightly with just a hint of paint on the edge. I have a couple sizes of this style, too. These should be almost stiff.

I also have the square end/edge kind in a couple sizes. I use these a lot for some types of lettering, especially larger words. Sometimes I will use one of these to put on the final white around the picture.

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I will try to take step-by-step pictures of my next window and I will add them here for reference. If you have any questions at all, please ask!

This is a fun activity for the children, too, even the very young ones. Just make sure they're either naked or wearing painting clothes! :D I usually draw the picture (their choice), let them color it in, and then I will go back over the lines and occasionally scrape off the excess that make it outside the borders. And always take a picture!

Oh, and clean up. What works best for me is to spray the painting w/ water, use a large scraper/razor blade in an upward motion, and wipe the paint onto paper towels after every swipe. Once all (or most) of the paint is gone, clean windows as you normally would.

"Pointy" brushes.  Great for small spaces, lettering, and lines.

Fan brushes. My favorites.

"Square" brushes. Some lines, lettering, filling in some spaces.

Tempera paints

The picture drawn on the window with a permanent marker. I go ahead and fill in the small black spaces b/c it's easier to simply paint over them with the other color rather than paint around them. I go back over them w/ black paint at the end.

The chosen picture for the window painting.

The painting nearly complete. I put a light blue for shading in the snow, but you can skip that if you choose.

The painting complete, on the inside (where I painted it).

The completed painting from the outside. The roll-up blinds were removed after I took the photo so now the top is visible as well.