I have a kindergartner?!

This past year, our family has had a lot of changes, including a huge job change for Mr. River. It was not just a change in jobs but also a change in shifts. So all of our schedules changed quite a bit. Although Baby Bear is still in preschool, we couldn't keep both girls in the program and wound up enrolling Blue in a transitional kindergarten (TK). TK is essentially the same as what kindergarten used to be. It emphasizes social skills and very basic academic skills (learning letters, beginning reading, etc). When California's kindergarten age cut-off changed, they implemented the TK program for the kids who used to be old enough for kindergarten but are too young now. So the kids who would've been nearly-5 upon entering.

Blue fit the age requirements and, after doing a walkthrough, I liked the program. I tried to find charter programs, but very few have a TK. (As a side note, the charter, magnet, local schools, choice schools, etc are very overwhelming!) The TK still emphasized play-based learning even though it also incorporated more sit-down, formal academic instruction. I would have rather kept her in the more play-based prekinder program, but that just wasn't an option. 

So unexpectedly, I now have a kindergartner!  She will go to the "standard" kindergarten next year, but she is loving the program so far. 

In September, with Baby Bear entering preschool and Blue entering TK, I got a bit excited with all the back-to-school buzz and tried to better organize the girls' corner in the living room.  Here is the result:

The table isn't anything new. We bought Blue a "Jr" Little Tikes picnic table for her first birthday and used it for everything. Snacks, puzzles, lunch, crafts, cooking, everything. When Blue was 4, her legs started to get a bit long for it, and it was a bit crammed for both girls at the same time. So this fall, we upgraded to the normal Little Tikes picnic table. When I bought it, it was on sale for about $40 off and included an umbrella - which we used for the girls' sand/water table to replace the old worn out one.  So it was a good deal! The table fits both girls perfectly with plenty of room for friends :) Here is Baby Bear using it to work on their Melissa and Doug fishing puzzle. 

The calendar and color wheel I've actually had for a few years. I purchased them at Lakeshore Learning, but I just never could find the wall space for them (my desk used to be at this spot). Blue and Baby Bear already know their colors, but the mixing of colors is something they're still learning. And it just looks so cheery! I really wanted to have a calendar at Blue's level; she already knew the days of the week but she loves to look at the big calendar for upcoming days. So this worked out perfectly. I used a 3M velcro strip (cut down to squares)  to make the days easy to rearrange each month. When I volunteered at a preschool at college, the teacher used like thumbtacks in the calendar, and punched holes in the days to hang on the tacks. I really liked that, but didn't want 30 thumbtacks at Baby Bear's eye level.

The artwork was a caricature done at the zoo and I love how it came out! Cheetahs are still Blue's favorite animal, so the cheetah was her request.

The white board/bulletin board used to be in our kitchen. I needed a whiteboard for Blue, though. Her teacher is working hard to address and challenge the kids at their own level, and Blue was put into the small group that is receiving sight words. It's pretty informal; Blue receives three words every two weeks for her to find in books. If she knows them after 2 weeks, she receives 3 more. If she doesn't, no big deal and she'll just keep what she has. If she loses interest in them, no big deal. I like the approach. And Blue is extremely excited about reading and picking it up like crazy. It was almost like she was a fuse, just waiting to be lit. Everywhere we go, she's trying to sound out words, spot sight words, write things out, etc. It's amazing to watch. So I wanted a space to be able to write those for easy reference. I also badly needed a bulletin board though; the school sends home papers every week for upcoming events. I've never been the most organized person, and this was definitely testing my limits! The bulletin board made it much easier :) 

Finally, this past weekend, I picked up the wall file organizer at ikea. It's metal but has rounded edges so not too sharp, and I liked that it included many more slots than most (for the same or less cost). We wound up only using four of them. One for important school papers (i.e. parent email lists, etc). One for weekly homework (Blue gets one page a week, it's more for the parents than for her). One for completed school papers that have come home (I go through these about 1x per month to sort what to keep or discard). And one for the girls' artwork. Blue is in a phase where she'll easily produce 5-12 drawings and "letters to friends" a day, and I was going a bit crazy with the piles of papers it was producing. I wish Mr. River had mounted it a bit to the right, but alas I wasn't here when he put it up so I can't complain :)

So long rambles short, that is our corner for the girls! This is also adjacent to the area of wall we use for the monthly theme, their artwork, our felt wall, etc. They also have their own craft cabinet (Rubbermaid type pull out drawers) with craft supplies like crayons, watercolors, pencils, stickers, etc) but that is kept across the room. 

Pantry moths and pantry storage

Where we live in San Diego, there really aren't any bothersome bugs. No mosquitos, gnats, etc. We leave our sliding door open a lot (including screen) because there really aren't any bugs to worry about. Except the moths.

 Having lived here for 8 years now, I have had issues with pantry moths three different times. They are annoying, mostly so because they're so hard to get completely rid of unless you do a total purge of your cabinet.  About a month ago, I had my second incident with pantry moths and began the purge of the cabinets. I thought I had caught them early on and applauded myself. But I must've missed a box or something because I started finding them again a few days ago! So I started over again! 

I've already fixed our pantry situation, but afterwards came across these two posts that might be useful to others:

How to clean out and check for pantry moths, here

Here's another blog post with tips and her experience.

What did I do?

Well I started with the standard empty everything out and check it. This time around I just chucked everything that wasn't in an airtight. I'm not doing this again in a few weeks!

Then I washed out the cabinets. I first did soap and water, then did a vinegar wash. Remember to get the tops of shelves too! Also wipe down all jars or cans!

Then I began putting stuff back. I had made the mistake last time of assuming that once I was rid of the moths, I was done and could resume my standard habits. This time around, I said no more boxes or non-airtight goods in the cabinet. Pastas, crackers, cornmeal, raisins, whatever - they all need to go into something airtight. We had been putting most of those things in ziplock gallon bags but that didn't work. 

So I picked up a couple of airtight containers but those things can add up fast! So I started searching around the house for what I already had... and lo and behold, I had a ton of empty jars that I had been saving and gathering from neighbors. I had been saving these for craft projects, and had a total "duh" moment of "oh these would be perfect for storing all the pantry stuff..."

And they are perfect! We will now be making a habit of putting pantry items into airtight containers before putting it into the cabinet. Even a lot of unopened food packaging is not immune to moths (cardboard boxes or even cardboard containers for things like corn meal). Sealed bags are not immune. So into containers they will all go!

Here are a few of my jars: raisins, black beans, barley, Israeli pearled couscous (with cooking instructions inserted because I can never remember the boiling time), and panko. 

I think it looks a lot nicer than the boxes too :) And definitely cheaper than buying a bunch of new containers! Hopefully these will be moth-proof. We'll also be trying the bay leaf tip to ward off moths!

Mooooore laundry detergent!

Mr River is intrigued - and in love - with our homemade laundry detergent. I showed him how to make some today to add to our container.

I also found this while searching around, which seems a nice cross between stretching out the powder a bit further but not having 5gallons full of liquid detergent haha. We might try this sometime :)

http://www.budget101.com/myo-household-items/5-minute-no-cook-laundry-detergent-recipe-4075.html

DIY Laundry Detergent - 10 days later

I know you were all eagerly anticipating a follow-up to my post on our homemade laundry detergent adventures. 

Well it's been 10 days and we have no complaints! Mr. River uses about 2tbsp worth on his scrubs, but we are using 1 tbsp of detergent on everything else and it's working great. Stains are coming out, clothes look clean, no fading, and they smell normal :) Most importantly (ok not stinking is pretty important, too), neither Mr. River nor the girls have had any skin reactions to it! Hurrah!

Choosing and Making a homemade Laundry Detergent

I've been wanting to make my own laundry detergent for awhile... I have a few friends who make their own and love it, saving a lot of money on detergent sounds fabulous, and since we have a lot of skin sensitivities and allergies in our family the idea of not having all the extra stuff sounded wonderful.

However... I kept putting it off. First, I couldn't find "laundry soap" or "washing soda" in our store. The liquid detergents sounded like they were a lot of work to make (maybe not?) and I just don't have room to store a huge 5 gallon thing of detergent in our house. I was also really hesitant to risk stinky, stained, or ruined clothes because of a flawed laundry detergent attempt. 

But then I found Fels Naptha at the store, ordered washing soda online... and discovered that you can make a powdered detergent and weren't restricted to liquid (though liquid sounds like it goes further and so saves even more money). So I gathered up all the supplies...

And then it sat in our cabinet for many months because I couldn't figure out which recipe I was going to use. There are a gazillion different homemade recipes, and they were all significantly different. Some had a 1:1:1 ratio of 1 bar Fels Naptha, 1 cup borax, 1 cup washing soda.. others had a 1:2:2 ratio. Some used 0.3:1:1 while even others did 2:1:1.

And they also all had different amounts of finished detergents that you used within the wash... some said 1 tbsp of detergent while others called for 1/4 or even 1/2 cup. 

Of course, they all ended with a vague "adjust as needed for your needs." This wasn't nearly as exact as I wanted, and I didn't want to risk our clothes as I tried to "figure it all out."

But, after too much time spent on laundry research and talking with friends who make their own, we have finally ventured into making our own homemade detergent tonight.

Because this is our very first night, I can't really say the long-term thoughts on this process... but rest assured that tonight, our clothes do not stink and they didn't dissolve into a million tiny bits of thread. They actually don't look any different than they do when washed with our store-bought detergent.  Nobody is wheezing or breaking out.

So what did I decide for the recipe and how did I decide? Being how I am, I just researched the crap out of the ingredients to try and figure out why everyone uses a different recipe.

What the Ingredients Do

The three main ingredients that most recipes use are laundry soap, borax, and washing soda. Here's what they do:

Laundry Soap: The cleaning agent. I even looked up how soap works - how interesting! it acts as an emulsifier, suspending the oils/dirt off the material. 

Borax: detergent booster. It helps remove stains by creating a type of hydrogen peroxide, and it disperses the soap which helps the soap work better. It inhibits things from growing, which is always good when it comes to laundry. It works best in hot water. (How Borax cleans). 

Washing soda (washing soda! not baking soda!): also a detergent booster. It helps remove stains and helps laundry detergent work in hard water by binding to the minerals. (How Washing soda works) It dissolves fast but it can also leave deposits unless thoroughly rinsed off.

Different Recipes

So after reading up on that and reading various forums and peoples' responses... it makes more sense why recipes and peoples' experiences differ. If you have hard water, for example, using more washing soda and borax (which help soften the water) makes sense. If you have tough stains and need more stain remover, using more washing soda and borax makes sense. 

There seems to be mixed responses on whether borax causes colors to fade in laundry. Some people have used it for years with no issues. Others said that when they sprinkled borax to boost their detergent, it faded their clothes in spots. After reading the various posts and how borax works, my thoughts are that the differences in opinions probably are from different amounts of borax used, water hardness  of the house, amount of detergent used, and water temperature. For example, if you have soft water but use a 1:2:2 recipe (bar:cup of borax: cup of washing soda) and then put in 1/4 cup of detergent and then wash on cold... it's working differently than if you use 1 tbsp of that same recipe with warm hard water where there is less concentration of borax, it dissolves easier (it is very rough on clothes if rubbed on them), and is in hard water.  This is where the "use as best works for your needs" comes in with those recipes :)

So after all of that, this is what I factored into when deciding on a recipe. We have hard water, typically wash on warm, and our clothes need a lot of stain and stink removal because of kid stains and gym smells.  We have an HE machine, so using 1/4-1/2 cup seemed excessive and I decided to do either 1 or 2 tbsp of finished detergent.

Final note: We are doing Fels Naptha this round, if sensitives show up after a few days we will switch to a milder soap and try again. So far, so good.  Because of Mr. River's profession, using a "milder" soap makes me nervous - his clothes and gym clothes get really dirty. 

What we did

We used the 1:2:2 recipe. So:

1 bar laundry soap, grated. 

2 cups borax. Again, we have hard water, we wash on warm.

2 cups washing soda

I first cut the soap into a few sections and then put it all into the food processor. I was a bit skeptical that it would finely grate it but it downright pulverized that soap in just a few seconds. I was amazed.  Then I added the borax and washing soda to the food processor and blended it all together to make sure it was well mixed up and that there were no clumps of washing soda or borax. Then I just dumped it all together. I used a small old oxiclean container to hold just a small portion of it to bring to the laundry room, the rest is in a giant food storage container. 

The whole thing took less than 2 minutes to make. All that hemming and hawwing and it was ridiculously easy to make!

I used about 1.5 tbsp to wash... why 1.5, well I couldn't decide whether to use 1 tbsp or 2 tbsp so I used 1.5 to see how it'd come out :) 

If we had different lives or different water or a different washer, I would likely not start with this recipe.  For example, if we didn't have to worry about dirty unhealthy things on Mr. River's clothes, we would probably use a 1:1:1 recipe. If we did not have to worry about Mr River's clothes *or* the kid stains, we would be using cold water and would probably do more like 1:0.5:1 using only a half cup of borax.  I never washed on warm until Mr River went into his current profession.  If we lived in MS, where the water is extremely soft, I would likely do a 1:0.5:0.5. If we had a normal washer and not an HE, I would probably use 1/4 cup of detergent mix rather than the 1-2tbsp. So that's kind of my thoughts on why the recipes are so very different for different people and diffferent needs. Hopefully it makes sense :)

One final tip I saw, but have not tried, was to add a bit of vinegar to the rinse cycle when washing to make sure that all of the detergent is gone. Plus it helps soften up clothes. I haven't tried that but with only using 1.5 tbsp, I wasn't too worried about residue being left. Some people also add essential oils to the detergent, but several reviews I read said it really doesn't make them smell any differently after coming out of the dryer - the heat takes off all the scents. So might as well save the essential oils. Since we have skin sensitivities, we will not be adding anything scented. 

How'd the clothes come out? They came out great. They look normal, they smell like clothes... no fancy smells, but then we haven't ever had fancy smells because we can't use scented detergents :) Normal dirt and stains are gone (woot!) and my big container of the detergent looks like it will last a really long time. So yay for saving money! We'll see how we feel after testing it out for awhile :)