Happy Mother's Day

The weather is even more gorgeous than it was yesterday. I got up early and ran to the grocery stores before it got too hot. Then out to Spanaway to pick up 5 buckets of bunny poo (for my garden).


I waited until today to share my Mother's Day gifts, even though the family jumped the gun and gave them to me yesterday. My husband and middle daughter went in together and got me a cold frame for my garden. They actually got me one double this size. But once I got home and thought about it, I realized I really don't have room for it. So it is going back, tomorrow, and I'll get one this size, instead.


My eldest son and his girlfriend got me two beautiful orchids for my livingroom.




I am fortunate to have such a sweet family. Thank you for the gifts.

Happiness is....

.... a pair of dirty garden clogs.


Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and you know what that means? Time to put out the veggie starts. Today was a lovely day here in the Pacific NW. Maybe one of the nicest we've had so far this spring. Unfortunately I had to go to work. But not until 11am. I was able to get up early enough to do a bit of yard work before heading off to the yarn store. Here I am amending the soil a bit in preparation for using this spot, at the base of the back steps, as a perennial herb garden.


My Raspberry Canes are making good progress. These were planted, as little starts, last year. I am anxious to see how many berries I get this summer. Do you see the hummingbird feeder? After this picture was taken my husband spied a hummingbird trying to get a drink. But I hadn't filled the feeder yet. I felt so bad for teasing the poor guy. I made sure the feeder was filled immediately. (click to enlarge picture)


Look! My russet potatoes are starting to get leaves. They seem to like it there in the garbage can. The Yukon golds, in the can next door, haven't made their entrance through the soil yet. I keep checking.


After I went indoors I saw this little neighborhood resident making a visit to my backyard. He must've buried one of his peanuts in the lawn and was stopping by for a snack. He's looking at me, looking at him.

Yard Sale Friday

I'm going to try and get in the habit of going out and hitting a few yard sales each Friday morning. Today was my first attempt and it was rather disappointing. Maybe its because of the Mother's Day Weekend, but there were only a couple of yard sales here in my area. One of them was full of junk, used clothes and shoes, and some other bits and bobs. But the first sale I hit had some plants. They had a LOT of raspberry canes, but I've already got plenty of those. They also had some herbs. I came home with these little guys, thyme, some kind of mint (will have to look it up) and oregano. Total spent? $4.

Homemade Laundry Soap? Hey, It Works!

Not only does it work, it works so much better than commercial detergents. AND it costs a LOT less. A 7 oz. bar of ZOTE cost me 59cents, and produces 3 cups of grated soap. Enough for 3 batches of laundry soap. And one batch lasts me about a month. The borax and washing soda cost a bit more, but together they are less than a jug of laundry detergent, and you can get many 1/2 cups out of a box. I haven't crunched the numbers but I'm guessing each batch of my laundry soap costs less than $1. There are many homemade laundry soap recipes out there on the Internet. And they are all made pretty much the same. All you need is some grated soap, water, borax and washing soda. While doing my research, I noted that many who made their own laundry soap, using either Ivory or Fels Naptha as the base soap, had a problem with dingy whites. But somewhere I read about this amazing soap from Mexico, called ZOTE. Apparently ZOTE contains some type of optical brightener that not only produces whiter whites, but brighter bright colored clothes. After using this laundry soap for over a month, I can attest to the truth of that statement. Whereas my whites and light colored clothes were drab and dingy while washed in my DUET machine with Tide HE detergent, now those same clothes are no longer gray....but super white and bright. Here is my recipe. This soap is very concentrated and low sudsing. You can safely use it in both HE and regular washing machines. Be aware that you'll need to dissolve the gel in some hot water before adding it to either type of machine, and especially when using cold water wash. ZOTE can be found at most Hispanic grocery stores.

1 cup grated pink ZOTE
3 pints water
Dissolve on stove, stirring well. Add:
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
Stir well until thickened. Remove from heat. Put 1 pint of cold water into a 1 gallon container. Add the soap mixture and stir well. Add more cold water to fill container. It will gel as it sits but you can use it right away. I used 1 TBS. for a small, lightly soiled load. Add more soap as needed. Bigger, dirtier loads will require more soap. I would probably have to use 1/2 cup for my hubby’s nasty work clothes.

Very low sudsing so it rinses out easily. Cleans so much better than commercial detergents and the optical brighteners in the ZOTE really brighten whites.

NOTE: If you decide to try this, be aware that you'll need to dissolve the gel in hot water before using it for warm or cold water washing. If you add the gel to cold water it will just float there in a glob. It's highly concentrated. Also, do not expect this to be all sudsy like commercial detergents. It won't. But it cleans like mad. Those suds are just a marketing ploy. We are conditioned to equate "bubbles" with "cleaning".

Fancier Is Not Always Better

When we purchased our current home, 4 years ago, I was able to get all new appliances. I had heard nothing but good things about the Whirlpool DUET Washer & Dryer, so decided on those for my laundry room. I had previously owned a Maytag NEPTUNE set, and was not happy with them. The washer never emptied fully and as a result mold and mildew was a problem. Little did I know that the Duet would be even worse. There was always water left in the machine. The clothes never looked clean. And the towels would smell awful as soon as they got wet, as in when you dried off after a shower. My husband's nose is very sensitive to molds and he was constantly complaining about the stinky towels. This was very frustrating for me. But the kicker was when the bleach dispenser malfunctioned. I washed a load of whites, with bleach. Immediately after that I washed a load of my husband's dark work clothes, including his black tee shirts. Imagine my horror when the bleach was released during the load of dark clothes and all his black tee shirts had ugly orange spots on them. I finally decided to get rid of my washer & dryer. I put my set up on Craigslist and was able to find someone who was thrilled to trade me for their top loading set.

In the meantime I had stopped using my washing machine and began hand washing everything. I learned how to make my own laundry soap and once I worked out the kinks I discovered that my clothes were much cleaner and that hand washing really isn't that difficult. I will share more on this in my next post, including my recipe for home made laundry soap that really cleans and brightens your clothes.

What A Girl Wants

My husband was true to his word. He had promised to buy me an electric weed whacker and a new rake, once we returned from Chicago. After being stuck on an airplane for 4 hours each way, and basically sitting around eating and drinking the rest of the vacation, I was ready to get some much needed exercise. Monday I did 5 loads of laundry and hung them on the line. This in spite of high wind gusts that threatened to blow the clothes into the next county. I also mowed the lawn and used my new gifts to make it look tidy. Today is sunny with much less wind. But I have to go to work, so no playing in the garden for me.

2010 Chicagoland Pipe Show

This year's Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show was a lot of fun. As usual, it was held at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL. About an hour outside of Chicago. We arrived late afternoon on Friday. Just in time to partake of the free buffet dinner. We hung out with friends for a bit, afterwards, then hit the sack early. We wanted to be well rested for Saturday, the main day of the show.

The event opened promptly at 10am on Saturday. Here are pictures of the huge room, with pipes, tobacco and assorted paraphernalia, as far as the eye can see.

I didn't have much spending money this year, but was still able to come home with souvenirs. I scored all of this tobacco, for FREE.

I also won this nice SMS meerschaum pipe in the silent auction. This would retail for $90. I got it for $55.