S-s-s-s A-a-a-a F-f-f-f E-e-e-e T-t-t-t Y-y-y-y... Razors

My name is Gina. I'm a child of the 80's (hence, the Men Without Hats reference in the title) and I HATE to shave my legs.

 Phew! I feel like I just lifted a huge weight off my chest. I really mean it, too. More than most women, I think, but not so much that I never do it, though.

In my crunchy quest, I started seeking out alternatives to aerosol shaving cream. That stuff is expensive and horrible for your skin and earth! I even made a few DIY shaving balms, but they just gooped up my razor (those expensive cartridge ones that are named after a goddess) and I couldn't even finish one leg. So that's when I started thinking, "these little wire-wrapped blades get gooped up and I can't take them apart to clean them. What can I do about that?" Then I remembered the old metal safety razor my grandmother used to use. That thing was SCARY! It was an all metal double edged heavy duty monster. But...she could take it apart...but how did she do it without slicing her fingers open? How long did the blades last? Where can I get one? So I called her.

Me: Hi, Grandma. Do you remember the metal razor you used to use?

Grandma: Hi, sugar. Yes, but I haven't used one in years. Didn't you make fun of me when YOU were a teenager about using an old fashioned razor?

Me: Yeah, probably. Wait. You don't use one anymore? What do you use? And where can I get a safety razor?

Grandma: I use those plastic ones (named after a goddess) now. I bought my last safty razor at a local drug store decades ago. I don't think they carry them anymore. Why? You want one now???

Me: Yeah. Gotta run. I've got internet research to do.

First I checked local drug stores and big box stores in my area. None carry single or double edged razors. Then I went to my favorite internet shopping site good ole' www.amazon.com, and what do you know, there are thousands out there! 

That's when I got overwhelmed. 

I also noticed while reading the reviews, NONE were written by women. 

Oh, and these things are not cheap, but in my research I found one that many reviews listed as a good starter. And it is a double edged, so that means more swipes between rinses (I guess). And it came as a package deal with 100 DE (double edged) blades for, like $17. Now, when I used to buy the plastic greek goddess razors, the blade cartridges alone cost about the same for just four. So I bit the bullet and bought this one.

It arrived in just a few days and then it sat on a shelf for MONTHS.  I was so scared of that thing. It is metal. It is heavy. It has a double edged razor blade on it... INTIMIDATING! And then I finally used it. Where has this thing been all my life? I actually got few cuts than with the plastic razors. I prepped with a sugar scrub and followed with my home made Beer'd Shaving Soap (hot process soap made with beer and clay). I can't believe more women don't use these things. They are so efficient that they don't need a gel layer or wire wrapped blades; they just do the job they were meant to do.

It's been nearly a year now, and I haven't used half of the 100 blades that came with the set (I still don't like shaving much). But I do notice there is less waste in my bathroom trash bin, and I have DEFINITELY saved major $$$ every month.

So, are you ready to take the plunge and purge the plastic razors and toxic gel/cream? C'mon. You can do it! Share your experiences, we can laugh together about how silly those plastic things are once you do!

You can also check out my review on the razor here.

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Oatmeal Cookies That Won't Disappoint

Yeah, yeah. I know. Oatmeal cookies have become  the healthy, ugly stepsister pock-marked with shriveled burnt raisins otherwise known as disappointment.

But these are different!

I made these last-minute for my daughter's school bake sale hoping to have several cookies return to Mama, but my plate was returned to me empty. Alas, my husband asked if I would make another batch, and I just can't disappoint him, can I?

So this is my first recipe posted, so the picture was taken with my phone. Classy. And I didn't bother taking a picture of each step. If you've ever made cookies, you know what it's supposed to look like.

A few tips:

1) Make sure your butter is soft, but not melted. Melted butter leads to sticky, oily, flat cookies.
2) If you shake your cranberries (or any dried fruit) in a little sugar, they will be less likely to sink to the bottom of the cookie.
3) You don't need a fancy stand mixer that many bloggers insist one needs to make amazing cookies. My hubs bought me one a few years ago, and I rarely take the thing out. It takes up real estate on my counter that I'm not willing to give up. It also takes a crap-ton of time to clean. I seriously use a fork for the dry ingredients and a wooden spoon for everything else.
4) While you should allow the cookies to cool a few minutes before removing them from the pan, DO NOT wait until they are stone-cold. You'll need another tool to remove them. A chisel.

Ok. Here we go. My first recipe:

Lemon Scented Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

350 degree oven

**WET**
1 cup butter - softened
1 cup dark brown sugar - packed
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla
zest from one lemon


**DRY**
2 cups ap flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

**YUMMIES**
3 cups oats
1 cup dried cranberries

Cream butter and sugars. Add remaining wet and beat until light and fluffy. Add dry stuff and mix until blended. Dump oats and cranberries in and mix throughout.

Throw balls of dough the size of golfballs (or other balls similar in size) on a cookie sheet and bake those puppies for 8-10 minutes.

Let cool for at least 5 minutes before attempting to remove from the pan (or risk the little suckers sticking to the pan). Enjoy with a big glass of milk, tea, coffee, wine... Don't judge.

So whaddaya think?

Adventures in Laundry

We recently bought a used electric washer and dryer after not having any for over six years. When we moved into our house there was a washer and dryer but no hot water. This was fine until we had the back yard remodeled and it turns out the gas line for the washer and dryer were set just six inches below the surface when they should have been set eighteen inches below. That explained why I always smelled gas when in that section of the backyard...

So we got this great backyard and lost the washer and dryer. Fine. But then the piles and piles of laundry started to accumulate and trips to the laundromat became more and more tedious, especially once our second daughter arrived...

Seriously. This is a typical trip.

Well, once we got the machines up and running (which is a long story itself), I started researching DIY detergent on my favorite website Pinterest. Ahhhh, Pinterest, you wonderful addicting, often cruelly inspiring temptress. I found some amazing websites through Pinterest and started experimenting on my own. So many great successes, almost as many horrible and terrific failures. Let's start with my adventures in laundry.

There are a lot of laundry recipes out there. Some are more natural than others. Most recipes required large amounts of ingredients and a five gallon bucket to mix and I don't have that kind of storage, so I made my own recipe. Here it is:

 1 bar laundry soap (Fels Naptha, Kirk's, Zote or even better handmade soap)

1 cup Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)











1 cup Borax

1 cup scented crystals (optional. I don't use them anymore.)









Water

Equipment
Grater
GIANT Pot
Big Spoon
Funnel
Container for detergent (reuse your old ones or juice containers/milk jugs)

Grate the laundry soap and mix everything together. It yields about 32 oz of dry detergent.

BUT, after finding THIS recipe at "One Good Thing" by Jillee, I found that if I melt the laundry soap in a gallon of water on the stove and mix everything into the water until it dissolves and add one more gallon of water I get over two gallons of laundry detergent!!!  I fudged the recipe a little and didn't add all the water at once because I didn't have a container large enough but now I have a large liquid detergent bottle with what looks like pinkish pudding and all I have to do is add hot water to loosen it up a bit to pour into a smaller container. I use approx. 3 oz per load.

Here's my husband's favorite part:

 The $avings 

Item	Price	Total Ounces	Price per oz.	oz. needed for Recipe	Recipe Cost
Washing Soda	$3.24	55	0.06	8	$0.47
Borax	$4.99	76	0.07	8	$0.53
Laundry Soap	$0.59	7	0.08	7	$0.59
Scent Crystals	$4.76	28	0.17	8	$1.36
Total Cost	$13.58				$2.95
Total Yield 2 Gallons = 256 oz.	$0.01	per ounce

It's even less if you leave out the scent crystals, which I found to contain phthalates. I also recently stopped using Fels Naptha because it is petroleum based. You can use any bar soap your family uses. I have started using my own handmade soap, but I've noticed it doesn't gel up like the batches made with FN. It's still really effective, though.

Oh! And I should mention this is HE (high efficiency) machine safe. Even though there is soap in the recipe, it is a low-sudsing detergent, making it perfect for HE machines.

Also, I don't use OxyClean in my recipes. I tried adding it to my liquid recipe and it ended up exploding all over my husband and our dinner on the stove. It heats up everything too quickly, but it would definitely work in a powder recipe. If our clothes are extra dingy, I'll just add a scoop of the stuff.

What have you tried? What works best for your family?

I am not a blogger. I spend a lot of my free time enjoying blogs from people that are truly inspirational. They are well written and filled with great-looking pictures (perfect lighting, exposure, etc.). Most blogs I follow show only successes, and make EVERYTHING they make look so simple.

When I sit down to write, I still hearken back to the days of the five paragraph essay. Most of the photos I take are taken with my iPhone with very limited lighting and exposure. And, I've probably had as many failures as successes when I craft/make/bake. For instance, take my rainbow bread debacle...

I digress.

So here's the deal. I've pinned a lot of stuff and made a lot of stuff lately. I need to keep track of what I've pinned and made, what worked and what didn't, and keep track of all the great blogs I get inspiration from. So that's what the mayhem will be from here on out. Plus, a little family stuff and education stuff  stuffed in there, too. Here I go...

Rainbow Bread and its many forms...

My church holds an annual World Communion Day on the first Sunday of October. There is usually wheat bread (America's impoverished), tortillas (Mexico), baguette (France), naan (Indian), arepas (Colombia), Malaysian rice cakes, cookies (the world's children), corn bread (African-American), and lavash (Persian).  Even though my church is rather small, we have an ethnically diverse community, and each bread is presented by a church member that represents that community. Since I joined the church in 2007, I have been asked to prepare the rainbow bread to represent the LGBT individuals that are afraid to come out for fear of losing their family, jobs, and/or church. I think I may be asked yearly because the planner of the event knows where I stand on LGBT issues, but I can't help but wonder if anyone else would stand up...

Anyway, each year I have tried something different. The first year I painted dough balls with food coloring and got ridiculous results. The following year, my daughters and I tried painting the bread after it was cooked, which made it look even worse. Last year I made a cake in loaf pans, which looked really neat, but no one ate it (was it the food coloring or what it represented??).

This is what I did this year:

I started with white cake mix (after I removed the double box tops for the Big One's school).

Next, I divided the batter into six bowls and set the dye in order. The Big One loved mixing the colors!

Gel colors work best. You can get them at any Michael's or Joann's (with a 40% coupon it's only $5.00 for a set)

And put it in the oven...

Actually, it was while I snapped this awesome pic that I realized I missed a CRUCIAL step. Can you guess what I forgot?

Yep, who has two thumbs and forgot to flour the pan? This girl. Which led to...

wait for it...

wait for it...

THIS. I had to dig it out of the pan in chunks. I wondered if I could make it a political statement... but decided to just let it be.

So I got the chunks to church and the kids went crazy for it. My Short One went up with me to present it as rainbow bread, and it was like I was torturing the little girl. The old saying "like taking candy from a baby" is quite a fallacy.

Two year olds love sweets and it's nearly impossible to pry it from their chubby little hands.

Partial Empty Nest...

The Big One has flown the coop - for eleven days.  Summer vacation is halfway over for my eight-year-old and there hasn't been much to show for it.  My mom has rescued her from the tedious routine of doing nothing, or nearly nothing, and is whisking her off with her cousins up north to visit my grandmother in Bass Lake, CA.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous. I spent several summers up north and can honestly say they were the best summers of my life. It sounds cliche but it truly was a different time and I hope my kid looks back on her time there with as much fondness as I do.

The Short One is enjoying Mommy and Daddy's undivided attention and has only asked about Sissy twice (it's been just over 24 hours).  But overall, the house has been eerily quiet.  I got some MAJOR organizing done with the kids' toys and books.  Oh, come on.  All parents go through their kids' stuff and throw junk out when they're gone.  I honestly don't think the Big One will miss anything, since her main interests lately involve iCarly, vampire babysitters, and softball.

The hubs hasn't said anything about her trip today, but I think he'll be going through Big One withdrawals in the next day or so.  We'll have to see how he holds up.