Wow~~

I will say this now, I almost forgot about this blog.

Lately, I've been getting into quilting, and neglecting my knitting and crocheting badly.

But for those that are still following me, be on the lookout for some sewing patterns from me.

For now, my list of sewing to do:

Bionic Gear Bag with Needle parking lot
Fountain drink cup covers
Stuffed toy balls for the animals.

Off to work on this list!!!!

Sorry Folks

I'm sorry to have to do this, but I have to moderate all the comments that come through here.  Lately I've been bombarded with spam comments, and I'm getting tired of coming back and having to delete them.  I love the comments, and almost all are welcome, but I'm just not happy with the robo comments about seeing other websites.

In other news, I've been busy trying to get a business started, and working on a doll house for a friend's granddaughter.  Maybe later I will post pics of the doll house when it's done for all to see.

TTFN everyone.

Revisiting Keurig and Homemade Soda

I thought I would come back and revisit what I wrote about the Keurig Coffee machine and making homemade soda.  Some discoveries recently made me feel like I need to shout out to the world about what I have found out.  And I think I'm going to start off with the homemade soda first.

I just recently gotten (like yesterday) a keg and a picnic tap to make 5 gallons of carbonated water so that the kids and I can make our own choice of flavors for soda.  Spent most of the day setting it up and carbing the water.  My son made the first soda this morning and it turned out better than when we were using the 2 liter bottles and the Carbonator Cap. We are still working on how much syrup it will take for a glass of soda, and I need to get a better pump system for the syrup so we can measure it better, but the results, so far, exceed what I had hoped for.

As for the Keurig, we are still in love with it.  I know I suggested to get the My K-Cup that Keurig makes for these machines, but been having problems with it.  One of my biggest issues is that we have to pretty much take the machine apart to use it.  I'm going to put mine away for emergencies.  Solofil works wonders, but you need to have 2-3 on hand as constant use clogged it up and it had to be soaked in bleach to clean it. In my stumbling around on the internet, I ran across this site My-Cap.  If you don't want to follow the link, these are reusable caps and cups that you can get.  I ordered the sample pack and couldn't be more happier.  They are just like the ones you can buy in the store, only you can fill them with what you want.  We keep coffee in 3 of them, and the rest have tea bags just sitting in them. Much easier to use when half-asleep than trying to fill a Solofil or one of the others. They did sell a template for folding your own filters, but after looking at the site, it looks like they don't offer that anymore.  We are still working on it here, but if you buy the 4 cup sized basket filters, you can shove one in the reusable cups, trim the top off and try that.  But the first one we tried, it overflowed the cup, so need to work on that one some more.   It's nice to be able to reuse these over and over again and not have to worry about running to the store to get more cups for the machine.

Sorry for my rambling, but when I get excited about something, I need to shout it out to the world.  At least I'm trying to do my part with these 2 products/ideas so that my family won't add too much to the plastic waste heading to the landfills.

Keurig Coffee Machine

Well, here it is, a new year.  With all that has happened in the past year with losing a sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and my oldest brother, I need something new to redirect my life.  There have been some good things in my life happen this year already, but are so personal, I can't relate to them on here.  Here's to hoping 2013 will be the year we can turn our family and life around.

One of the things that did happen was a small, helpful bonus of money.  Since they came out, I've kept my eye on the Keurig Single Serve Coffee maker.  With this bonus money, the kids and I decided to go ahead and get one.  It was love at first cup!!!!  My boy loves coffee, my girl loves cocoa, and I'm a confirmed tea drinker.  I did used to love coffee too, but over the past few years, coffee has given me terrible heartburn.  Before getting this machine, coffee was going to waste in the pot, and all day long there was impatience with waiting for the kettle to whistle saying the water was hot enough to make tea and cocoa.  The link above actually shows the model we did buy.  But I do want to share some hints for everyone that would be helpful if you think this is a waste of money.

First hint:  get either the My K-Cup, Ekobrew, or Solofill Cup Filter. I have both the My K-Cup and Solofill and like them both.  Don't know much about the Ekobrew filter, but from other sites I've read, it works the same as Solofill.  With any of these three, you can fill them with your own coffee and save a bunch of money by using MJB or Folgers ground coffee.  You can even get small samples of coffee and try different flavors without wasting an entire pot if you don't like the coffee.  The whole reason I suggest it is that those K-cups you buy in the store that are pre-made is expensive.  We bought some when we bought the machine and I was in shock that it cost $22 for 36 of those cups.  I could spend that much buying a pound can of coffee and 4 boxes of teabags and still have change left over.  Here's a little bit of math for you-- 36 K-cups or 600 cups of tea and coffee (round figure, since I don't know how many cups of coffee could be made from a one pound can).  I think you can see where I'm going with it.

Hint #2:  and this is the big one.  Being a tea drinker, I was searching the web to find out if anyone was able to use tea in this machine.  Several people say just run it for the hot water and drop a teabag in the cup.  I actually used both the My K-Cup and the Solofill with Red Rose Tea bags, pulling the string off and stuffing them in the filters of those 2 cups.  The tea comes out tasting like it's sat and brewed for 10 minutes on the counter.  The beauty of it is that I didn't have to wait that time for the kettle to heat-- or the 10 minutes for the bag to sit in the cup to brew.  About 90 seconds (if that, I don't time it) I have a hot cup of tea, throw some sugar in it and I'm back to doing whatever I was doing.

We also have been successful with filling a Cup of Noodles cup with this machine.  So that's makes it a win-win-win for this family.  Everyone is happy with being able to choose what they want to drink and when.  With winter in full swing here, we need all the hot drinks we can handle right now.

Homemade Soda-- I'm in heaven!!!!!!

OK, as I sit here tonight, I keep looking into the kitchen and marvel at the new toy this family just got today. What is it, you ask? It's a soda maker. Now I know most people look at that and think that we got the Soda Stream. Well, you couldn't be farther from the truth. I went with this soda system from Keg Connection. It consists of a CO2 bottle, something close to a welding/air pump guage, a hose with a connector on the end and a little gadget called the Carbonator. But before I go on and explain this system, I would like to give you all a background story on the reason we switched from Coke to this system.

As I sit here, I'm comtemplating about getting the LapBand put in. I try to eat right, and do what I can, but my weight has ballooned out of control. There were no diets that were working, and now I'm sitting at over 300 lbs. I've been told I need to cut out sodas, chocolate, anything that would have sugar in it. Someone would have to shoot me if I totally cut them out of my life. Then I sat back and realized, some of the weight problems began when they started bringing out convience foods and putting that high fruitcose corn syrup in sodas. That was around the start of the 80's when the microwave also came out. Before that, food was almost always cooked from scratch, and soda was still made from sugar. Maybe my family needs to take a trip back in time. Or maybe I can bring those days to the present.

So, now we are back to the soda maker. I did look at the Soda Stream, and just couldn't justify the cost of it when the CO2 canisters cost $15 for a tiny bottle. There are conversion kits out there, but they cost just as much as the machine does, so I started looking for alternatives. For what I would have payed for a Soda Stream and at least one extra CO2 bottle that might not last, I got the above setup, including extra bottle. These bottles hold 20oz of CO2 and I can get them refilled for only $4 each. Well, there's some savings, $4 vs $30 for the Soda Stream. You do the math. Another bonus-- I can mix the soda in some old 2 liter bottles, or 20oz bottles, where with the Soda Stream, I would be stuck with their 1 liter bottles.

I'm still on the search for syrups for it. I did make a decent root beer that rivals A & W and Hires Root Beers. For those that want the recipe, all I did was mix 1 cup each of sugar and water on the stove until it boils and all the sugar disolve, then mix in one teaspoon of McCormick Root Beer extract. Let cool and then put 1/8 of a cup (2 tablespoons or 1 ounce) in a cup and add ice and the carbonated water. Stir gently and enjoy. I'm also working on an “energy drink”. But we are planning on ordering the syrup concentrate and some 32oz bottles with pumps (like what you see at those sno cone shops) so we can meter out the syrup. We also tried the cola from Soda stream, even though we had to make 2 liters worth of it. It wasn't bad, tasted like Coke even though the syrup smelled like crap.

When we get more ideas about syrups, will come back and post them. One thing for everyone to remember if you get either system; Don't expect to carbonate your water/beverage to bubble like the commercial sodas do. But the taste so far competes with the commercial sodas.

Going Green???

I've sat here for the past few nights and really thought about what "Going Green" really means. I mean, everyone is into saving the planet, use less packaging, blah blah blah, but if you really think about it, most of that is what our grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on had been doing for generations. Don't get me wrong, I like some of the new convenience things out there, like the Swiffer Sweeper and Clorox Ready Mop. But I'm wondering if we are getting the wrong picture when we say we are "going green".

In an earlier post, I made mention that I was starting a soap-making adventure. I've completely given up on bar soaps, mainly because I don't like using the bars. I really prefer liquid soap. I found a wonderful book, Making Liquid Soaps by Catherine Failor. Her instructions could have been more clear, but in a nutshell, it's well written. Using her recipes, I've made 100% Liquid Castile soap, and one of the shampoos. I will say this about the shampoo; it did not thicken on me, and the one time I did use it as a shampoo, it left a greasy, waxy lump on the back of my head. I'm not sure what I did wrong, if my hair went into shock from using pure soap, or it's the residue from the store bought shampoos, but won't try it again on my hair until I figure it out. But it does turn into a very nice body wash. Both of my kids love it.

And that doesn't stop there. The Liquid Castile is now being used in many recipes I found on the net from a degreaser spray to window cleaner and will be using it in my ready mop. If you start on the Edentia Farms youtube page, this gal will show you how to make liquid laundry soap and even has a link to the amounts she uses. A little deeper search will also find her recipe for dish soap. I have made the laundry soap, and will be trying it later on this weekend, but the dish soap is to die for!!!!! I was getting grease and other gunk off of pans that I didn't think would ever come off, so I will believe her claim that it will get Sharpie Marker off of almost anything.
* Just wanted to come back and say that I did try the laundry soap this weekend, and throughout the week and we love it as much as the dish soap. Had to wash blankets and pillows over the weekend, and my daughter is complaining now that her blankets and pillows are so bright she can't sleep w/o sunglasses. One of the pillows is one she made and it's brighter now than when she made it. Those two recipes are keepers in our household!!!!

But back to the "going green" thing. We are starting to view this as if it was good enough to do for our ancestors to keep clean, then why shouldn't we do the same thing?? If making soap was just using wood ash from the fire filtered with water, then combined with grease, no one would have to worry about running out of soap ever again. Though I try to take the easier road with this. Instead of trying to filter wood ash, I buy my KOH (Potassium Hydroxide) online. Some of the recipes (see the dish soap) call for organic oils, I just use what I can buy cheaply at WalMart or Winco. Borax is my choice for a neutralizer and thickener rather than anything else out there because it's cheaper and has a two-in-one punch. Our ancestors used what they had at hand to make their soaps, then why shouldn't I do the same thing?? I'm just going about it in a little bit of a lazy way. I just can't bring myself to rend the grease from what I'm cooking to make soap out of. EEEEWWWWW!!!!!

Give it a try, you might just like the results that come out of making your own soap. It sure surprised us with our savings, as well as how clean everything gets. Watch the videos that youtube has, so you can get an idea how it's suppose to look and act when making. Try doing the bars first, like I did, then expand onto the liquid soaps. It does help, and get a copy of Failor's book. I treat mine like a bible. Though I will say one thing, you don't need a double boiler system, the crock pot does even better. Plus, you don't have to worry about making sure there is enough water in a double boiler to keep it going.

And if you are wondering about those savings, for around $20 I was able to get the KOH, oils, borax, and distilled water. Out of it all, I've made approximately 2 gallons of Castile soap, 1 gallon each of the body wash (just can't call it shampoo), laundry soap, and dish soap. You tell me, can you get all that for around $20 and have it last for about 4 months?? 5 gallons of soap. I think our ancestors were on to something there.

Another "Green" Experiment

Lately, I've been playing with going green, or going natural with everything in the house. Finally got the guts up to try to make my own soap bars. The first 2 were a bust, so started looking into other soap ideas. Finally tried making my own liquid soap.

The first one I tried to make was for a liquid castile soap. I tried to make it the old fashioned way with 100% olive oil. It turned out great!!! I'm starting to use it for most of my cleaning, and I am pleased with the results. Still have to tweak the window cleaner recipe, but found several others on the net for this "liquid gold".

I've also tried my hand at homemade dishwasher powder. Figured out what I was doing wrong. (Yes, I will share the recipe after the story) When I first tried it, it was borax and baking soda. Left an awful powder residue on my dishes. Then found one recipe that said to use Kool-aide packets with the recipe. Same story. Then came Kosher Salt. Didn't help. Finally, after some more research, and a screw-up on my part for the chemical to make the liquid soap, I finally came up with the following recipe:

1/4 cup borax
1/4 cup Washing soda
2 tablespoons Kosher Salt
3 tablespoons Citric Acid
Small Amount of Rice *

I don't know what it is with this area, but using the washing soda instead of baking soda really helped. I tried the Citric Acid mixed with my regular dishwasher powder, and suddenly had glasses that were clear, not cloudy. These were the same glasses that I tried the other experiments on, they clouded up and I just couldn't get rid of them. This does make a small batch, in fact, I'm keeping it in a pint-sized mason jar. When I use it, I use about 1 tablespoon in each cup, and my dishes haven't looked better. I also use white vinegar in the rinse compartment.
* Side Note: After making this, it went into a rock-hard mass that I had to scrape out of the jar. I went back to look at other recipes that others have made, and they were having the same problems. One person added about a teaspoon of regular white rice and the clumping problem disappeared. I haven't tried this myself since my rice supply got bugs in it, but will try it again soon with the rice and see if that helps.

At the rate I'm going, I'll be able to clean out all of those old chemical cleaners the ads say we just can't live without. Between what I'm finding to make with regular cleaners, and my steamer, we should be free of those store cleaners in next to no time!!!