A Reader Lives a Thousand Lives

When I was a little girl my Momma never went anywhere without a book. Some mass market paperback version of the new Stephen King, or Dean Koontz was always tucked in her purse. She bestowed a love of reading on to me at such an early age.

I poured through books as an elementary school kid. I even won a contest in 1^st grade for reading 100 books in one school year! As I became a teenager, when the phone and eventually “hanging out” took over my life, while I would pick up a book now and then, I rarely read past the requirements of my English classes. In college it was even worse. Who the hell has time to read for pleasure in college?!?! When you show up on the first day, listen to lecture, and in your first class are assigned 9 chapters……before TOMORROW? Yeah, no escaping into a love story tonight! (This implies that I always read the material for my class the next day. Sometimes I would – if something better didn’t come along. I mean when your neighbor is having a get-together, you can’t not show, can you?)

After college I would read books every now and then. But I got out of college and had a baby. Ya know, there should be a billboard in front of every high school about babies: Sleep too much? Too much time on your hands? Think about yourself too much? Desire financial responsibility for the rest of your life? Too much time NOT cleaning up bodily fluids? HAVE A BABY! As the kids got older, and would ACTUALLY go to bed at a decent hour, I did read progressively more, but I’ve always been a busybody and have always had too many irons in the fire. For me time has always been like alcohol to an alcoholic, as soon as I have a little bit, I promptly consume it.

When I started the work I’m doing now, all time for books went out the window. I found myself working increasingly more hours and, when I would have time for a book, I was reading contracts, or books on negotiation techniques. I obsess. And, when I find something to obsess over, I go all in. There’s no obsession I work at half ass. If I’ve decided it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing RIGHT.

Now, as I am older, and my kids prefer video games and smart phones to my presence, I find myself with a little more time. Or at least I am attempting to make a little more time in my life. It has become clear to me that the life of obsession, over only one thing, is unsustainable. And so I’m diversifying my obsessions.

Lucky for me, Mikey shares many of these traits. And our obsessions are very similar in so many ways. We recently sat down before the end of the year and brainstormed a list of things we’d like to do in the upcoming year. Over half or more of the things on my list and his matched. One of them was “Read more books.”

In the last six months or so, we find ourselves particularly enjoying spending hours at the thrift store searching through books. For us, owning books seems something akin to collecting antiques. Eventually we figure a book, written on paper, and bound in such an artistic way, will be a thing of the past. And we just aren’t ready to let go of that past. Whether they ever are worth anything? I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I love a good book collection – always have. And so we are building ours.

The thing is though, we love books so much, and are interested in so much, that there are times we walk out of there with 2 paper bags full of books. Since we’ve done this a few times now, we talked about limiting ourselves to a weekly trip, with a preset amount to spend: $13.05. That is the price of 5 books (if they are on the high end of the pricing scale). We decided that we will shop as usual and if the combination of the books in our hands at the end of our trip is greater than 5, we will have to start bargaining over which ones to put back. (Fortunate for me that I negotiate for a living – however he’s pretty. damn. good.)

Yesterday, after we hit the gym, we wandered over to see what we could find. Funny, when you’ve bought a hundred books in the last month you’d think there’s nothing left to want to buy. WRONG! We left a couple on the shelf (with no real bickering) and brought 5 home.

And I can’t wait to go back! It could be worse...at least this latest obsession is fairly inexpensive. And we're making reading time a priority - I've already read 3 books in the last 2 weeks!

Going Granola...according to my Mom

Mom: (On the phone while I'm at work) "I'm at your house and I was going to throw a load of clothes in for you but I can't find your detergent."
Me: "It's in the cabinet over the washer & dryer in the glass jar."
Mom: "This powder with the yellow waxy things in it?"
Me: "Yes. I make it myself. It's much less expensive and is helpful for the environment (less plastic containers)."
Mom: "What are you doing? Are you going all granola on me?"

There are only 4 of us in my family. But with my husband being a big guy, not to mention working a dirty job, and having an 8 year old son, I do a LOT of laundry. I have been a Tide girl for a long time, particularly the liquid version, but about a year ago I came upon homemade laundry soap on Pinterest and decided to give it a try. I'm just getting down to my final glass jar of my second batch and thought I would pass my experience along because it really does work and it really is inexpensive!

I could hardly believe the claims - lasting for months upon months of laundry loads - but even still, I wanted to check it out. While I'm not the most frugal girl, and I'm not the most environmental nut, I do like to save money and keep plastic out of the environment as much as possible.

And so last April I tried the recipe I found on Pinterest. I would link to the original recipe I used but there are TONS of them and they are all about the same.

Here are the things I used in the first batch:



This picture is the property of simplelifeandhome.com

 

It took me 5 months to use it all! At 2 tablespoons per load it really goes a long way. The initial cost of the products listed above when I purchased them was $20.19! I don't know about you but I have never gotten away with $4/month for laundry detergent. And it works!

 

When I went to make the second batch I decided I really missed my fresh Tide smell. Since Tide doesn't make a powdered fabric softener, I went with Purex Crystals Fabric Softener and, because soccer season was upon us, I also added a box of Ultra Clorox 2 for Colors.

 

So, here is the complete list of the ingredients for the kind I like the best:

 

1 - 4lb 12oz box of Borax (You can find Borax in the laundry aisle. It is also good for your carpets)

1 - 3lb 7oz box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (found in the laundry soap aisle)

1 - 3lb container of OxiClean (found in the laundry soap aisle)

1 - 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (You'll have to get this in the baking aisle)

1 - 55 oz container Purex Crystals Fabric Softener (found in the laundry soap aisle)

1 - 49.2oz box Ultra Clorox 2 for Colors (found in the laundry soap aisle)

2 bars of Fels Naptha soap (found in the laundry soap aisle. You could also use Zote)

 

Here's what you'll need to do:

 

First you'll need at least a 5 pound bucket to mix all of the ingredients together in. Ideally you'll probably end up using this bucket as storage so make sure it has a lid. I keep the detergent in a smaller glass container in the cabinet and then refill from the bucket as necessary.

 

Next, you will want to shred the Fels Naptha. There are different suggestions floating around the internet on the best way to shred the Fels Naptha. In my experience and opinion the fastest, easiest way is to put it through your food processor. The first time I had Brandon shred it with a cheese shredder and while he's much faster than me, it was still hard work and took a little while. The second time I ran it through the food processor and was done in less than a minute.

 

Now, mix it all together and stir! Be careful where you are doing your pouring and mixing. When the borax, washing soda, baking soda, etc. come rushing out of the box it can create quite a cloud of soap dust (which doesn't taste very good either I might add).

 

Use the detergent just as you would any other powder detergent. For everyday loads you only need about 2 Tablespoons per load. I add an extra if I'm washing soccer uniforms, or other really dirty stuff.

 

Call it granola if you like, but I am quite happy with this method. And I'm totally down with anything that saves me money!

 

 

Score!

Like many women I love to shop. I also like to find GREAT bargains. I'm not one to ever pay full price for anything. I have been known to walk out of Macy's with a mini-wardrobe that I gleefully only used my $50 birthday gift card to purchase. I swear some of my friends go shopping with me for my bargain karma.

Today I stopped at Kohl's to get a pair of tights. I was one of the lucky ones who got a 30% off coupon in the last ad so I knew I wouldn't be able to get a better deal anywhere else. Turns out they were having their "Gold Star Clearance" event and everything on clearance was an additional 25% off! Woohoo! I really restrained myself though and even as I poked through every clearance rack in the store I kept telling myself, "You don't need that. You don't need that. Even if it is only $5.60!"

Here's the loot I walked away with:

I got my tights, and I also got a flower for my hair, a cute black ruffly cardi, a pair of panties for Lil and the Converse sneakers Lil has been eyeing since before school. My total bill? $12.94!!! Everything I bought (minus the tights) was on clearance so it was an additional 25% off, then they took my additional 30% coupon off, then I had $10 Kohl's cash from a shopping trip earlier this week. I saved $109.87 according to the receipt.

A good bargain is a thing of beauty. And it often makes the things I virtually got for free some of my favorites!