bladder capacity & toy baths

I may not be a real scientist, but I play one on the internet.  Hello, I am a "rocket surgeon" y'all!  So being all scientific-ey the other day I realized I can visually represent the Beans' bladder capacity for you visually.

Before we get to that, have you seen this?

Or hows abouts this?

So true.  So very, very true.  In my case, the Beans did not actually escape his prison, he just decided to punish me for putting him in it.  I should have been alerted by the sudden silence.  I should have, but I wasn't observant enough.

Now to the scientific bladder capacity part -- just how much pee can a two and a half year old's bladder hold?

Enough to contaminate all of this when he puts his mind to it.

To be fair and maintain scientific transparency, there was smearing action before I realized what was happening.

Of course, my giving his toys a bath was so cool, so he naturally added more to it.  Dumped a whole bucket of Duplos before I could stop the little monstrosity.

This is totally the crap that should be in parentage books, but is strangely absent ...

So, laundry detergent, eh?

I was on a roll, I was feeling good, I knew failure was imminent!

But not today, or so I told myself!

As I was busily making my Ghetto Wipes and cleaning fluid I was also chatting with friends on the interwebz doing serious research.  In a facebook group of totally awesome people, many of whom far more skilled than I clearly, a recipe for laundry detergent surfaced.  The idea was born and I was obsessed.

I compared notes with about a million other recipes on Pintercrack.  I wanted a liquid and not a powder, and wound up doing one similar to this.  It is apparently the Duggar's recipe, but mine had slightly different ratios and made less than this one but I am not complaining.  Since it was a recipe shared by someone who makes this to sell it, I am not sharing the exact thing here -- not like I have such huge traffic it would matter but not risking it anyhoo!

So the ingredients are simple ... water, Fels-Naptha soap (or any bar soap apparently), Borax, and Washing Soda.  I made a quick Walmart run for the bar soap, the bucket (cheaper BTW at Home Depot or Lowes, NOT at Wally World go figure), and the washing soda.

Start by grating the bar of soap with a cheese grater.  Try to not be totally appalled at how much it looks like cheese.

Boil 4 cups of water and add the washing soda and borax to it (see, different steps than the Duggar one!) and once it is mixed around a bit add the cheesy soap bits.  I was trying to be really patient and get it to dissolve, but it was only mostly dissolved by the time I gave up and moved on.

I filled my big assed expensive bucket (it was like $5 instead of $3 at the hardware store LOL) with about 3.5 gallons of water by using an empty and rinsed out apple juice bottle.

While doing this step the Beans mocked my superior parenting skills by breaking into a room with a baby proof knob cover that *I* can barely use but he can remove.  Threw it into the bucket of water for good measure to let me know what he really thinks of my attempts to keep him out of my bedroom.

I then dumped that yellowish mixture into the bucket, clapped the lid on and let it sit for 24 hours.

The next day a hard film about a quarter inch thick had formed on the top and I tried to break it up.

Then the messy began.

I had an empty giant Costco-brand-of-Tide bottle and a couple big containers from the dollar store.  No matter how careful I was about it, I wound up smelling very very clean by the time I was done.

End result, we have been using it for a bit and I love it!  I use a full cup that came with the "Tide" of it for a wash load, because I read that somewhere... now that I think about it I may try less and see how that works.

What I Have will last a while.  I do have to occasionally shake the bottle because the chunks settle into the bottom and pug the sucker up.

So while I am not giving you a full how-to here, this should serve as a lesson.  I appear to not have caused any permanent damage to anything and am still off of all the government big brother watch lists (that I know of or wouldn't be on already LOL) ... so you can totally do this too!

So no massive failure yet ... the streak continues and I am not sure what I will do next!

Ghetto Wipes

So immediately following the making of my Ghetto All Purpose Cleaner I started butchering a roll of paper towels to make wipes because it appeals greatly to my inner lazy biotch to just have that around.

But let us start at the beginning.

I am a teaching supply hoarder.  Whether it is Sharpies or random containers that I insist on keeping while my husband rolls his eyes and tells me I am nuts, I just cannot help myself.  It is a compulsion.  One that behooves us more than my husband will EVER admit.

Point is, every time he goes through the garage and asks me "can I please throw this out now?!" I find a use for something that saves us money.

So the cylindrical cleaning wipes containers I insisted on keeping because YOU NEVER KNOW wound up being not only insanely useful but also part of saving us money!  Take that Bunyan!

I had my Ghetto All Purpose Cleaner ready to go, so I just needed the container and the "wipes."

This is where it gets messy.

First off, I had a roll of paper towels that are select a size, and I really thought I would like that.  I was wrong.  I may be getting ahead of myself here in reviewing my "product" before I tell ya how to make it, but in case you don't read the whole thing and try to walk in my footsteps (are you mad?) let me tell you now -- your wipes will be tiny!  Do not use the select a size towels if you use a dispenser like I am unless you want tiny wipes.  How tiny you ask?  Let me show you:

So I would prefer, and will do this next time because it is the only complaint I have at present, to use the full sized towels.

Reason being, step one with the paper towels is to cut them in half.  The whole damn roll.  Have you ever tried to cut a roll of paper towels in half?

It is a messy process.

Really.

I couldn't fit a whole roll of paper towels in the containers because they are just a bit too narrow, so I had to set some aside.  I did have the sense to do that before I cut the roll in half at least.

After sawing the roll in half and making your work space look like a blizzard hit, you have to wiggle the cardboard roll out of the center.  This is a lot easier than I figured it would be.  Then squeeze the roll into the container and pour the fluid mixture on it.

Seriously, that simple.

Now I had to clean the front bathroom, the one the boys all use.  I did not take a before picture, frankly who wants to see that?  But the after picture?  Seriously, my toilet was sparkling like a moody vampire on a sunny day!

Did you "ooooo" and "aaaaaa" because you should.

Again, like I said in the last post about making the cleaner, it was not like I was scrubbing obsessively.  It was no more work than a usual cleaner.  I did have to wipe the space dry, so I had one hand with a wet wipe and one with a dry one.  I also can't do a cost break down because again I had to purchase none of this that day, but I am sure it comes out exceptionally cheap when you really figure it out.

Feeling pretty in control of things I set my sites on a bigger battle because something else was running low and I would need to buy more soon ... laundry detergent ... oh yeah.  Stay tuned.

I am on a roll here, maybe I should change the blog up to be about practical cleaning tips ... something like ...

Seems legit.

All Purpose Cleaner, ghetto style!

I love the idea of making my own stuff.

Okay, no, I don't.  But I almost got that lie out with a straight face.  I am just cheap and being that we are a one income family in a world where two incomes is advisable we are broke enough I consider it.

While cleaning products aren't something I have to constantly buy (I usually did the bulk purchase option which lasted a bit) it seemed like they coordinated when to run out so that it would really bankrupt us.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner: "Hey y'all, the stash is getting low out here.  We only have one spare bottle that she will open the next time she cleans!"

Glass cleaner Refill: "Dats good with me, I am almost out too!  I will make sure she spills on the next refill and she will have to replace us at the same time!"

Antibacterial Surface Wipes: "No worries here!  Kids are back in school and you know she will be disinfecting the poo out of them daily!  Ha ha she will have to replace all of us!"

Meanwhile the toilet paper and paper towels are chiming in that we are down to the last roll too.

So the bulk that can be so great stinks when you have to replace three things at 20ish dollars whenever it happens.

So, I again hang my head and turn to the Pintercrack gods and ask if they have something that won't kill me, burn the house down, or land me on some government watch list if I make it in my kitchen.

I started with something that was an all purpose cleaner.  I went with that because my beloved wipes were running low, and in order to MAKE new ones I needed to MAKE the fluid first.

So I looked and looked ... for something supposedly so simple why are there so many options?  Oh and why does vinegar have to work so well for cleaning and smell like vinegar?  I mean really, isn't there a way to not make it smell like athlete's foot in the midst of the throes of death?  After the microwave incident it seems unlikely I will intentionally make my house smell that way, right?

Anyway, I went with this pin, because it did seem simple.

1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp dish soap (everyone uses Dawn LOL)
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 cups warm water

Aaaaand apparently I took no pictures during the whole making-it process.

Great.  Well I will tell you that I used the Dawn with Olay in it so it smelled like pomegranate something or other.  This one:

While that may leave a film behind when you clean (since it IS a lotion in the soap) it made the smell of vinegar much less overwhelming and it was the only Dawn I had in the house left over from a homemade scrub making session.

I followed her directions, which are nice and simple and I heart that, and wound up making several batches.

Here are my bottles of completed All Purpose Ghetto Cleaner (yes, a classy and creative name really sells the product) ...

Stunning, I know.  Yes, that is an empty Squirt bottle re-purposed for a life of holding the back up refills.  I made a ton of this stuff, mostly because I had the supplies and it was easy.  I found that with the Dawn I used that the vinegar smell was actually very tolerable, so I was stoked to use it.

I did use the spray to clean somethings and oh em gee it was a fantastic cleaner!  Like seriously, I was genuinely impressed.  I honestly thought when people raved about their homemade cleaners it was just them patting themselves on the back for having made it and scrubbing their asses off in order to fool themselves into thinking they worked.  Sorta like the whole microwave thing, I figured my new exercise plan would be that all my home cleaners sucked and I had to work four times as hard to make the house passably clean.  Not so!  I was actually impressed at how clean stuff looked.  I do have to follow up my wet wiping with a dry wipe, probably because I used the Dawn with Olay and it streaks if I don't.  But it smells pretty decent, cleans well, and costs very very little.

Usually in posts like this people tell you that it only cost them $0.08 a bottle or something, honestly I have no clue.  I do know that I had all the ingredients, including the empty 2 liter bottle and dollar store spray bottle, so technically it cost me nothing to make it that day.  Having had this in the house for over a week I can tell you that I use it pretty often but I am not running out yet, so it is certainly economical.

So, I didn't blow anything up and didn't even make a big mess this time!  Well, at least I didn't until I started to make the wipes ... but that is tomorrow's story ...

our drug stash

Given that our bathrooms are the size of a matchbox we are very chosey on what we chose to store in them.  As a result, all the medication is held in the storage capacity of the only-slightly-larger kitchen.  Top shelf of a cabinet is where all our cold and flu, pain meds, prescriptions, and ointments reside out of the reach of children and only slightly convenient.

However, it was getting a tad messy.   I also stuck our sunblock and bug repellents up there and it was chaotic. It looked okay from the ground but you couldn't actually find anything without removing everything.  There is nothing less cool than needing medicine (which probably means you aren't feeling super) and being attacked by a crapalanch of fourteen different bottles.  Makes for a grumpier and sicker feeling mama.

True confessions -- I have had to explain the bruise on my forehead from a rogue can of spray sunblock more than once and was a little sick of it.

So in the interest of house peace and preservation of my sanity (and vanity!) when I am not feeling super-dee-duper I gutted it and started over.  With the use of some Dollar Tree baskets, chalkboard Contact paper and my Cricut I took this:

The bottles in the back hold the useful shit.

Mystery baskets, add to the excitement of your
search for heartburn relief!!!

This post is not about the Tupperware vomit.
Or that whole bottom shelf,
just ignore that please.  

And turned it into this:

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain
... or the other two shelves!

So what was a mess of bottles, half of which were expired by the way, is now four baskets with the Ibuprofen, Tylenol and Aspirin in the middle and easily accessible.

Here we have the daily crap for the family.

Here we have the adult medication
that isn't alcohol.

Kid meds so we can dose the minions

Sunblocks and bug goo

Now I can find everything and drug myself and my family accordingly!  Wait ... that sounded worse than I meant it to.  Well, its not like I am going for a mom of the year nomination here anyway!

vinegar + microwave filth

So on my list of forty things that just needed done so desperately around here (that I swear will get done before I die) was the microwave.  I had put the microwave in the Meatball's chore sticks because it wasn't like I was expecting to do surgery in there or anything.  However, since the previous homeowners chose to grace posterity with off white appliances it was getting a tad icky looking.  So I of course turned to Pintercrack to help me find a totally effective yet lazy way to not humiliate myself when people are over and need to zap food.

Cue this pin.

Well I happen to have a butt load of vinegar here from my science teacher days and a dirty microwave, lets do this!!!

Note: She lists a toothpick as an optional supply.  I would suggest a jackhammer if the grime in your microwave has the sheer stubborn staying power mine had.

Here is before, and I swear it was worse that it looks.  By a lot, I am not even trying to be all "oh it was just a mess from the night before!" nope, y'all I barely every clean it and stuff blows up in that thing all the time.  It was bad, the camera adds ten pounds but subtracts a years worth of slobbery.  Oh, and the marks you DO see are semi permanent, I swear.

I should have taken before and after pictures of me.  They would have been something like this ...

Before ... and ... After

Here is the microwave, after I tried to asphyxiate the hell out of my whole household with the ungodly stench of hot vinegar and scrub like Cinderella.  Ugh.

The original poster says she only had to zap the vinegar once.  Well, I lost count after five 2 minute increments.  Or maybe the stench just killed enough brain cells I couldn't count any higher, hard to know for sure.  Seriously.  It was the stickiest crap ever, it was like trying to take a tattoo off with a dry baby butt wipe, thus why it was still on there after all this time and my paltry attempts at cleaning that proceeded this one.

I found that when I moved the cup directly under or next to the section I was focusing on it made it a lot easier to clean that part.   This is why I had to do it several times, slow and stinky but effective.

In case the whole cup in the microwave thing was hard to understand.
This is for the visual learners.

Gagging the whole time I did it and while I snapped those pictures, but I must say, I am impressed.  I am also annoyed I didn't have the wherewithal to try this when it was nice outside because I'd kill a small village to open a damn window up and ventilate this place.  The pin tellith no lie, it works, but oy vey it smelled worse than I expected for a little while!

Of to pin "how to get rid of vinegar smell" ...

I am that good

Okay I have totally sucked donkey bits at blogging lately, I will give excuses later.  But I wanted to share with y'all what I am clearly not doing in my bloggy absence.

Being any good at anything that resembles "domesticisty."

As an example for you this fine day I offer this pictoral piece of evidence:

Now while you are wondering what you are looking at, and why you are looking at that random assortment of crap I would like to blow your mind.

It was in the couch.

Not just under the cushons, I am not that bad.  Shit, I have needed spare change plenty of times in the last decade of that couche's existance to have lifted the cushions in hopes of a Dr. Pepper from Circle K.

No, my couch eats things.  It once tried to eat my Great Dane's leg, no joke.

This was all in the frame of it.

In case you are not yet impressed with my complete bad-ass-ness yet, please direct your attention to the top leftish of the picture.

See the pacifier?

That was Meatball's.

He is eleven.

Boom!

its a passing phase

Productivity comes in cycles for me.  Sometimes I have like zero ambition, and that can even be an ambitious estimate, while others I seem to be a bit obsessed.

I have to make the most out of the obsessed times because they are usually short lived and often followed by stretches of lazy lostness.  Yes, I make one fabulous housewife.

At any rate, I've been more productive than usual.  I am referring to my in-person-life here because my blogging alter ego has been pretty much worthless lately.  In so doing, I have also developed an abnormally large sense of self confidence, which I figure will either translate to shit getting done or a whole lot of writing material.  I call it a win-win either way.

I have heard that in order to be really truly accountable you have to tell people what your goals are.  If you don't share them, then you never really need to admit you failed.  I usually have no problem castigating myself over my own failures, but what the heck, lets make a list here and see how I do with the public thing:

I have birthdays, summer, and in-law visits on my horizon ... I gotta get crap done ...

(in no particular order)

1. Clean ceiling fans, because I rarely have them off and notice how dirty they are
2. Organize the growing box pathetically labeled "pictures and keepsakes"
3. Finish the 11 year old's baby book *hangs head in shame*
4. Clean house thoroughly closer to visits, not halfsies clean
5. Finish the "measure the kids" ruler thingy that has been half-done for like a year and a half
6. Clean out Meatball's closet
7. Clean out the Bean's closet
8. Clean out toys ... purge the hell outta toys ...
9. Make a Goodwill and/or consignment shop run to ditch some crap
10. Make my kitchen cabinets look less blah
11. Make my/our bedroom not be the one with the door always closed in shame
12. Do something with the bathroom walls, b-o-r-i-n-g!
13. What are we doing for the Beans' birthday?
14. Hair cut, its pathetic and been like a year since I did that
15. Garage -- make the parts that are my problem look less like a bomb test site
16. Garage -- urge and support Paul Bunyan to deal with the rest of the garage
17. The backyard will only be a livable space for a couple months, make it look nice for them
18. Make my Command Center wall so I can at least appear organized!
19. Shave the dog.  Yes, I said that.
20. Come up with an item # 20 because you can't have a list of 19 things!!!

There, that is a start.  I have no real hope of accomplishing all of that in the ridiculously short time frame I am giving myself ... which is like 2 weeks ... but let's see what we can do, eh?

Insanity will commence in 5, 4, 3, 2 ... aren't you glad you don't live here? ... and 1 ...

yeah, I'd kill for that

Obviously as the name of the series suggests, this is about the most basic emotion and driving force in human nature.  Jealousy.  On Pintercrack, in magazines, catalogs, on TV and in movies we are constantly shown these utterly awesome places. But in reality we have normal ones. Talk about let downs. Sometimes these awesome spaces serve to inspire us, motivating us to do something utterly bad ass with our otherwise normalcy.  However, no amount of aqua chevron stripes can alter square footage or make an incredible bay window appear out of no where.  So to open this series I am rockin' the honesty factor to the highest degree with laundry rooms.

For the sake of literary impact lets start with the things I am tortured with on Pintercrack and in other forms of visual media.  This really started when I saw a pin about an amazing blog full of ideas for your home.  I started poking around and agreed, it is a great blog with lots of great ideas.  I follow it, and continue to explore.  Then I click on a section about "befores and afters" because I loooooove me some before and after posts!  But I am puzzled when I see a beautiful image of a washer and drier and a sink ...

Puzzled because the sink and counters and cabinets look like a kitchen, yet there is a washer and drier in there.  So I look back at the title, thinking perhaps I read something wrong and this lady lives in Europe where I know you will often find the washer in the kitchen ... no, she just has a gorgeous laundry room.

And that is when I become a bad person full of hate and envy.

But really, can you blame me?  I mean, these are the images I come across when I look for organization ideas for a laundry area ...

Ah yes ... note the windows letting in light so you don't feel trapped and enslaved ...

Tile floors, curtains, crown molding, how lovely.

So white and crisp!  Heavenly, am I right?

Ooooooo and here we have an island in a laundry room ... look forward to an upcoming IK4T post about kitchen islands ...

And here we have a huge amount of storage, square footage, with a nice dash of I-hate-you.

Now this image is nifty.  Have one of those closety type laundry spaces?  You still have more than I do.

And this?  Well, this is what I have.  Ladies and Gents, I give you the Domestic Rocket Surgeon's operating room as it pertains to clothing:

To be upfront, I live in a part if the country where basements are seen as an adorable nostalgic and completely unnecessary accessory and expense. Unfortunately, the builders of my home back in 1985 thought a designated laundry room space was equally worthless apparently. Yes, my washer and drier are in my garage.

My garage.

I know (at least here) that this is not hugely abnormal.  But please, understand, our garage is a multipurpose room.  It holds my car, our beer fridge, lots of storage, and is my husband's "workshop" too.  My laundry is often covered in sawdust.  I have to clean my laundry area often.  But it is never clean.

Where do you hang your clean clothes that cannot get dried in a drier?  Pintercrack says you could hang them here ...

... or here ...

or even here, with a bit of upcycling ...

But me?  Oh, my husband rigged me a clothes line that hangs right between my car and my storage section of the garage.  Here, bask in its beauty.

Mmhmm.  The angle of the photo suggests that my clothesline might be suspended from my handing tube lights that flicker all the murther fawking time, but that is not the case.  There is a hook the size of my head gouged into the popcorn ceiling on either end.

Oh and yes, if you run out of toilet paper you have to come out to the garage to get more.  On that note, lets take a look at some of the "laundry room storage" ideas Pintercrack has to offer us.

Hide all that unsightly stuff with a curtain! Poof, gone!

Have individual baskets for each member of your family so that they come and get their basket full of clean, folded goodies and put them away themselves (sorry, I nearly wet myself laughing at the idea of my boys actually putting their clothes away, like all the way away).  I categorically refuse to acknowledge the farmhouse style sink in that picture, the one I desperately wanted in my kitchen.

These laundry baskets roll.  And look at the pretty cupboards and counters.  Want to see mine?  Okay, here ya go ...

Why I keep all those vases I do not know.  

Why yes, that is James Dean playing pool, my Tide bottle, and a really expensive-heavy-as-a-baby-flashlight.

Well lets look at the pre- and post- laundry stuff.  What about soaking and cleaning, all the pre-treating you are supposed to do.  We have seen some enviable sinks but here is another one:

Vintage!  Oh, the character.  

My sink?  

Oh that's right, *smacks forehead* I don't HAVE one.  But I do have a soaking bucket, right between my washer and drier.

Try to contain your envy.

My "utility sink" or "laundry room sink" is my kitchen sink.  My folding area?  Um, the top of my giant dog kennel just inside my garage door.

*le sigh*

Ironing is something I do about, oh maybe, three times a year.  It depends, quite frankly, on the number of weddings and funerals we attend.  So a designated ironing space would be probably wasted on me, but since I am in such a goooooood mood, lets look at one comparison.

Oh handy that!  Put an ironing board on a little glidey slidey thingy and you can store it soooo easy.  Me?

Well my ironing board gets set up in my kitchen so I only have room to stand on one side of it because the other is smashed against the counter.  Oh and my iron, it seems to have bladder control issues.  I can't complain though.  The fear of electrocution makes ironing much more thrilling.


In fact, for as hideous as those picture may be, I spent a good ten minutes making it not look so atrocious that I could post it on the internet without being utterly humiliated.  I can live with mild humiliation, complete humiliation is different.  Yes, yes, those images you just giggled at or stared at with blank horror are the better, less embarrassing versions of my reality.

So on the list of things I want in my dream home one of the top ten items is surely a laundry room that is in the actual house!  And on the list of things I would kill for ... any of the laundry spaces pictured that aren't mine.