heart attacks and mcbutterpants

No, hubby didn't have another heart attack, thank God. But last time I was in the Costco laundry detergent isle putting my hand on the big ol' box of detergent we always buy, I almost had one! It went up in price over $6 from the last time we bought it!
So, my hand flew off that box like it was on fire and I slowly backed out of the isle, shaking my head in disbelief. No way. No how. Luckily for us, I'd been reading up on home made laundry detergent, how much cheaper it was and how much less of it you have to use than the commercial stuff. So my thought was, I can do this!

Here's what you need:



1 bar Fels Naptha (can use regular Ivory or Zotes bar too), grated finely
1 1/2 cups WASHING soda (NOT baking soda)
1 1/2 cups Borax powder

I found all of these items on the laundry detergent isle at Kroger. The first batch I made, I only used 1/3 of the bar, 1/2 washing soda, and 1/2 cup borax. Then I figured out, you could just make a bigger, longer lasting batch if you used the whole bar and tripled the amount of the powders.

Here I am grating the bar of soap, using gardening gloves so I can get that last little bit of soap through the grater and not my skin :-)



Mix it all together and store in airtight container. Mine is in an old, (large size) sour cream container. All three ingredients with tax cost a grand total of $7.43 and the boxes of powder will probably last me all year, I'll only have to buy more bars of soap (those were $1.19)

Here's the deal about this. And it's NO JOKE, we've been using it for over a month and so I know it works. You use 1 TABLESPOON for light loads or 2 TABLEspoons for heavy loads. Just mix it all together, don't worry about the amount of grated soap you get in each scoop, it all comes out in the wash! Yes, your clothes get clean!!



OK, the final kicker is this. Don't faint. I've been using VINEGAR as my fabric softener! Yep, regular white vinegar! And we don't smell like a pickle! In fact, all of our towels, sheets, etc. smell better than they ever have! And I'm a faithful Downy user from way back, so I was skeptical! Actually, I read somewhere that if you had any fabric softener left over, you could mix it with the vinegar for scent (some people add essential oils for fragrance, but it's not a must), so I've been adding 1 teaspoon to each 1/4 cup vinegar and putting that in the Downy Ball with each load. But when the Downy runs out, that's it. A huge gallon bottle of vinegar cost a little over $2 at the WalMarts :-)

I feel better about laundry now :-) Cutting back in small ways really adds up!

Speaking of cutting back....have you seen Muttley lately? He's one year old now and we're thinking it's time for him to get rid of that baby fat....

so here's Muttley, aka Fatty McButterpants, aka Laser Eyes



Yes, we have an Amazon pug!

Astro is not fat, but check out that face roll....



Happy Sunday y'all!

a post about nothing...

...in particular that is :-)

Thank you all for the bloggy name love and get well wishes on my last post. Not only am I gonna keep the blog name, but I spent the better part of last night trying to spruce it up a little bit around here. Just some little changes, but I hope you like!

Shoulder pain. Oy! I've had a bum shoulder since I was about 14 years old (30 years ago!!). It acts up every now and then. Usually what causes it is my job, which involves counting things (money or paper) the whole time I'm there....it's a part time job, but we pack 8 hours of work into 4 or 5, so it's intense and fast paced. The other thing that doesn't help is that I stitch in hand, and holding the fabric sometimes just aggravates the whole issue. Luckily for me, it comes and goes, it's just that I have to give up stitching completely until it passes.

My friend Patti stitched all of the CHS Virtue series recently and then passed her charts on to me. My plan is to stitch them all together, vertically, and maybe make the finished piece into a bell pull....maybe. Here's the first one, she's not done yet (no stitching for 3 days), but I wanted to share anyway :-)



this is so tiny...less than 2 inches wide by 2 1/2 inches tall. I'm using DMC on 40 ct. Goldfinch...


Oh gosh, on the bloggy love subject, I can't forget that I got some awards recently!

Melissa gave me this one...



and Lynda gave me this....


Thank you both so much!! I am the world's worst about playing along with these, so hope you all can forgive me for being late in saying thanks and for not playin' by the rules. There are just SO many blogs that I love and read and that deserve these awards, if they haven't already gotten them, how can I pick just a few?? But I do appreciate the thought behind receiving them!

Totally random picture....




this past weekend we had GORGEOUS weather, oh my gosh, it couldn't have been more perfect!! Hubby grilled outside, he even grills up extra chicken, etc. so during the week we have it for whatever...nachos, chimi's, salads. And the above was my contribution to the Monday night nachos, lol! We LOVE fresh guacamole with plenty of cilantro, fresh tomatoes, etc. YUM!

It's been gloomy and raining for two days now...you just never know about the weather here in Texas!

One more thing before I quit (if you've stuck with me this far, bless your heart)

Sweet Sue had an idea to start this blog, and I think it's just the sweetest idea! There's no commitments or deadlines...just whenever you feel like spreading some kindness, you can! We need more people to join!! Come on over and play!

be kind

My shoulder and hands have still been giving me trouble, so not much to show in the stitching department. Even this tiny finish had to be mounted in Q-Snaps and then to my lap frame in order for me to finish it....




This is from the chart, "Be True, Be Kind" by Homespun Elegance




it is teeny tiny, measuring just 2 1/2 inches high by 2 inches wide



my favorite part of stitching this was doing the colonial knots, I've never been good at French knots, these are much easier for me :-) My friend Jan (hi Jan!) once filled in, with french knots, the whole area of a bunny tail on a design for me, that's how much I disliked doing French knots, and that's how good of a friend she is...to jump in and do somethin' that you *hate* for you :-) Luckily for me, since she moved to another state, I learned how to do the Colonial knot, and actually enjoy it! But she's still missed. A lot!




So anyhoo, getting lots of stuff done around the house since I can't stitch...organizing the stitching closet, getting ideas going about paint colors for the dining room, kitchen, sun room....DH is all over the idea, helping chose colors. He's also been full of energy and happy about doing lots of stuff around the house, lucky me! I think he's feeling a lot better these days and I'm so thankful for that!

I've also been thinking about changing my blog name. When I first started this blog, I was really into cupcakes, and when trying to think of a blog name, thought of all sorts of crazy things....anyway, I think we'd just been to the State Fair of Texas, and you all know one thing State Fairs are good for is coming up with different things to DEEP FRY every year, so that was fresh in my mind as well. Hence, Deep Fried Cupcake. Do you know, I just thought that was such a random thing, but it's really NOT! There IS such a thing as a deep fried cupcake, if you google it, you will see for yourself. One site made me laugh, it's called something like "this is why you're fat" and showed a picture of an actual deep fried cupcake!

SO yeah, I'm thinking maybe I should change the name....is it just too silly and random for a "stitching/pug/baking/who really cares" blog? Your thoughts?

tiny finish and an oldie

My shoulder has been giving me FITS the past week, so there's not much to show in the finished department. Just this tiny heart...



It's ABC Heart, a bitty kit from Shepherd's Bush....



and I was going through my "finished" pile earlier today (cause if you can't stitch, the next best thing is playing with your stash, right?!), and came across this piece of work...



OMG, there are so many things wrong about it, but it's one thing I can never seem to part with.

Does anyone know the name of this? I can't remember if it was in a magazine...I did a LOT of stuff from mags back in the early 90's, anyone remember the Jeremiah Junction designs? I have stitched my fair share (and more), of those!



One of my Flickr pals, Sue (who started up the new BBD blog) recently shared a photo of this very same sampler in her photostream, her pic is much better than mine, and I actually think her finish is prettier as well ;-)
Now, looking at mine up close, I see some boo-boo's!



What you don't see is the MASKING TAPE that I used around the edges of the aida cloth, which is what I did to all my fabric back then. I'm pretty sure it wasn't acid free ::insert snort here::, so my plan is to cut it off, there's enough of a margin around the stitching to do it.
Anyhoo...it was framed very poorly by myself, in a really atrocious frame, so a few years ago I decided to "save" it by removing it from said frame and putting it away, to be re-framed later.
There are SO many things in that box to be framed or finished...some things I don't even LIKE anymore.
Maybe I should put those things up for adoption?

giveaway winner

Since my DH isn't home so he can "screen capture" the Random Generator thingie, I just cut and paste and the winner is Katrina!

True Random Number ServiceList Randomizer
There were 9 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

Katrina
Abbey
Alice
Cindy in Va
Nancy
TraceyIL
Evelyn
Rebekka
Debbie
Timestamp: 2009-03-11 22:15:26 UTC

Thanks to those of you that played along! (And thank you all for visiting my blog and leaving such sweet comments).

thanks be

Today's post by SouleMama is so touching...I just love her blog, she's always reminding her readers to appreciate the small things in life, and to remember...

Sometimes the remembering part is hard, especially when our brains won't even allow us to put together a complete thought. Even trying to figure out what I want to say here is difficult! So my posts have been short. And still, it takes me forever to come up with one. Silly.

So I'll just show here what I've been stitching and try not to say too much since it all comes out wrong anyway...



This design is from La D Da...



an oldie, but goodie.



it was finished before the Spring Fling, but I forgot to post it. Typical!



Stitched on 35 ct. Daily Grind over two with one strand WDW thread.

spring fling

Finished this up last night after work...



thanks to the time change and a wicked case of insomnia, I really hit a lick with it!



The fabric, which is 30 ct. Glen Ellyn Blend by R&R is really much greener than it appears here.



but it's a perfect match for the greens in the design.



This has been my absolute favorite project so far this year, I loved working on it.



Design by Blackbird Designs, Loose Feathers #13, Spring Fling. Stitched with recommended Gentle Art threads, two over two.
I'd really like to have it made into a pillow eventually I think.

Don't forget to comment on the post below if you'd like to be in the drawing for the Noah Stocking chart :-)

And Happy Spring to you!

giveaway

Remember my CHS Noah Stocking I posted about in January?

Well, I'd like to offer up the chart for it here. So if you'd like to be entered into the drawing to receive the chart, please comment on this post. I'll do the random generator thing to pick a winner next Wednesday, March 11.

Hope that makes sense. My brain is a little deep fried lately.
I'd really like to thank you all for your sweet comments on my last post (and always)
Things are all-righty around here...we're going to make it, we're definitely blessed...
:-)