Not For Ambition or Bread

Homemade Laundry Soap

2010-02-14T09:37:07-06:00

Yesterday, we made laundry detergent. It was easy and made quite a bit of detergent for not much money. All it takes is 2 cups of grated soap (Fels-Naptha, Ivory or Zote), 2 cups of washing soda, and 2 cups of Borax. We used a whole bar of Zote, and about half each of the borax and washing soda and made a double batch. So, the total cost was around $15 for enough soap to do about 200 loads of laundry.

Here's the process.Zote smells a bit citrus-like, which is nice.

Grate the soap, you'll need about 2 cups. A finer grate than this would actually probably be better.

Add the grated soap to boiling water. (It might be easier if you add the soap more slowly while stirring, ours clumped a bit.)

Stir until the soap is completely melted.

Transfer the liquid soap to a good sized bucket. (We're using a well-rinsed cat litter bucket, which is big enough for our double batch.)

Add 2 Cups of Borax and stir. At this point the soap/Borax mixture thickened up quite a bit.

Add 2 Cups of washing soda and stir. Interestingly, this made the mixture thin out again.

Finally, add 2 gallons of water and mix. Laundry detergent done!

I'll report back once we've used it for a while and let you know what we think of it in comparison to "regular" laundry detergent. With an almost-two-year-old in the house and spring around the corner, I suspect it's going to get a workout.

Habari: Ownership

2010-02-02T22:28:30-06:00

For the month of February, the Habari Project has chosen the theme Ownership as its first monthly focus. As part of that focus, we've been challenged to take on ownership of some aspect of the project. I'm choosing two things to work on this month, publicity and screencasts.

As far as publicity, I've created a twitter account called HabariWatch which will be used to track posts and tweets about Habari so that it's easy for people to find out what people are saying about Habari and doing with it.

For screencasts, I'm going to commit to making at least 10 screencasts during the month of February. The first one is up on YouTube. It shows the activation and use of the Flicker Silo. The audio leaves a bit to be desired, but I think it's a great starting point.

Let me know what you think of both HabariWatch and if you have any suggestions for additional podcasts.

The Heartbreaking Sound of Guns

2010-01-27T19:38:34-06:00

I just realized something while watching The West Wing episode in which there is a military funeral complete with a gun salute. The sound of a three-volley salute breaks my heart a little every time I hear it. Even for a fictional character.

The first funeral I attended after Aiden passed away was that of my maternal grandfather. He was a veteran and was given military honors including the gun salute. This was, of course, a rough time for me, and that gun salute broke the thread of self control I had left at that point and left me sobbing. . There are so many things tied up in it for me that I strongly suspect that I'll never hear a gun salute without a tear coming to my eyes. And honestly, I'm okay with that. It may not be much, but it will always remind me that those who sacrifice themselves for our protection deserve our respect. It also reminds me that for every person who receives the honor of our tears, there are hundreds, or thousands who we will never know, but will be missed and cried for by someone.

Military or otherwise, there are so many people who give up something to make us each who we are today... parents, teachers, friends, family and even strangers. If there's something that makes you stop and think of them, even for a moment, you should embrace that and treasure it. Am I the only one, or is there something that always stops you and turns your thoughts around?

Reflections on Aiden's Web Presense.

2010-01-13T18:28:54-06:00

I've updated Aiden's site to run Habari. Due to the infrequency that I checked the site, it was becoming a spam target. I also wasn't keeping the software updated which meant that the spam wasn't confined to the comments where it could easily be filtered out. I also put his pictures up on flickr rather than continuing to maintain yet another piece of software for them.

Looking through the pictures and reading the site brings back to the surface the pain and heartache of it all. I miss him, but I know in a little while his energetic little brother will come through the door shouting "Dadeee" and wanting to feed the cats and listing to his musica. Life is rough sometimes, but it could be so much worse.

Friends of mine also just had their first assignment through Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. I'm proud of them for sharing their skills with people in the darkest moments of their lives.

Even though he's been gone for 5 years, the wounds are still fresh and the love is still strong. I miss you my son.

Ten Things

2010-01-05T11:45:54-06:00

I'm starting a new accountability project this year and I need your help. Accountability is useless if no one is holding you to it. So I need feedback, reminders, harassment or whatever to help keep me on track.

Here's how it works.
I have a list of Ten Things that I need to do each day. They are divided up into categories. Cleaning, Household, Accountability, Health, Personal, and Professional. Then there is a category that will be assigned by TBWITWW. Each of these 7 categories will be ongoing daily tasks. They'll last a minimum of a week and the goal is 28 consecutive days. If I've completed the task 28 consecutive days, I have to replace it with a new task while continuing the (now, theoretically habitual) old task. The final 3 task will be assigned per-day. They will be one-off tasks picked the night before.

So, each day should get a score out of 10 and each day I'll post the score to Twitter (and Facebook). If you don't see a post, let me know.

Additionally, the "Accountability" category requires public participation as well. So, for my first "accountability" task, I'm tweeting any discretionary purchase. Which means if I spend money on anything other than a fixed, recurring bill, I post it for the world to see. The idea is that this will not only hold me accountable, but help me resist impulse purchses. ("Do I really want the world to know I'm going to McDonald's again?")

So... keep me honest and on track. Please? And if you want to join in, let me know and I'll do my best to help keep you honest too.