Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've been using the homemade laundry detergent for a few weeks now, and the results are fantastic! It is especially good at removing "organic" stains: blood, milk.....well, you know. I chose not to put a scent in mine, but I'm still using Bounce in the dryer, and the clothes smell fantastic. Today I decided to break down what I'm saving, and I was pleasantly surprised at the results. The homemade stuff costs about 10% as much. In other words, I'm saving 90% on my laundry detergent! The best part is, I don't have to run to Sam's Club every 3 weeks or so to buy the huge container of Tide.

To get started, I needed to invest in the supplies and the bucket to mix and store the detergent. I bought the smallest quantities I could, but I'm sure I have enough Borax and washing soda to last for years!

Here's a breakdown of what I spent to get started:

• 5 gallon bucket with lid from Home Depot, $3
  
• 5 gallon size paint stirrer from Lowe's (I already had mine, but they're free)
  
• 1 bar of Fels Naptha Soap from Giant Eagle, $1.49
  
• 1 box of 20 Mule Team Borax from Giant Eagle, $4.39. I'm sure I could have gotten this cheaper if I'd have shopped around.
  
• Washing Soda, $9.99. I couldn't find regular Arm and Hammer Washing Soda, so I bought pure sodium carbonate in the pool section of Home Depot.
  
• An old, empty detergent bottle, about 2 quart size
  TOTAL: $18.87
  

Next, I mixed up a batch of detergent, which took about 30 minutes or less. The kids helped, since I'm sure they thought I was crazy. I got the recipe from the book "The Duggars: 20 and Counting".

• 1 bar Gels Naptha soap, grated (on your kitchen grater) ($1.49)
• 1 cup washing soda (83 cents)
• 1/2 cup Borax (24 cents)

Grate the soap bar into a small saucepan. Cover with hot water. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring continually, until the soap completely dissolves.

Put washing soda and borax in a 5-gallon bucket. Pour in the hot, melted soap mixture. Stir well, until all the powder is dissolved. Fill the bucket to the top with more hot tap water. Stir, cover securely, and let set overnight. The next morning, stir the mixture. Mix equal amounts of soap concentrate and water in a smaller laundry-detergent dispenser or container. Shake before using.

Top loading machines: use 1 cup of mixture per load
Front loaders: use 1/3 cup per load *this watery gel is very low-sudsing

One fun thing I found is that this is an excellent stain remover when used full-strength. Just pour a little on the stain and rub it in, as you would with Shout. I also used a little to soak some badly stained items and it worked like a charm. I read online that Fels Naptha is kind of the original fabric stain remover. It used to be made with Benzene (which causes cancer and is harmful to unborn babies), but that ingredient is no longer included.

COST PER BATCH: $2.56 (makes 10 gallons). If you use 1/3 cup per load, cost is about 1.4 cents per load.


Compare to Tide HE: the big jug at Sam's Club is around $18, and does 120 loads. That's a cost of 14 cents per load.



So, I'm saving here, and making one less trip to Sam's Club (hooray!).

What Does a Midwife Do?

It seems that no matter how much progress we nurse-midwives have made over the past half-century, there are still those who have no idea what we really do. The very word midwife conjures up ideas of old, uneducated women who attend births in the dark corners of society. Despite the fact that I have a professional place of practice and privileges at two hospitals, I am still asked all the time whether I deliver babies at home, and am dismissed by those women who who assume they can't have an epidural if they want one while in labor.

So what does a nurse-midwife do?

First of all, we care for pregnant women, and deliver babies. We provide complete prenatal care from the time of conception through the postpartum period. The prenatal care I provide is very much like what is provided by a regular obstetrician: vitamins, regular prenatal visits, ultrasounds, lab work, and so on. However, we believe that pregnancy and birth are natural processes that usually don't need intervention. Read more about the midwifery model of care. I usually spend a very long time with my patients, offering emotional support and making sure they know the best way to care for themselves during pregnancy. I explain all the tests and procedures that have become standard during pregnancy, so that my patients can make truly informed decisions about what is done to them. When it comes time for delivery, they have a lot of choices in how they birth. I help them to understand what those choices are, and the implications of those choices. If they don't want pain medicines, I will be there with them and support them throughout their labor, encouraging them and letting them know what a good job they are doing! And if they choose to have an epidural, there's no judgement from me. After all, it's not my birth, it's theirs.

We manage obstetric complications. This is actually why we go to school. While in most cases pregnancy and birth go pretty smoothly, the reason you have someone attend your birth is to manage any complications that arise. I tend to be very low intervention, so if nothing goes wrong, I'm likely there just to monitor the baby's heartbeat and encourage you, rub your back, help you change positions. If a complication develops, I'm trained and experienced to handle most things: hemorrhage, stalled labor, dips in the baby's heartbeat. If there is an emergency, I have a relationship with a physician, and I will consult and refer as necessary. The State of Ohio requires this written agreement, and it helps provide a smooth transition of care.

We care for women throughout the lifespan. This means that from adolescence through menopause, we offer regular gynecologic care including PAP tests, contraception, and treatment of gynecologic problems.

We have superior outcomes. Really! When compared to physicians with low risk patients, midwives with the same types of patients had better outcomes Cochrane review. Patients who use a midwife are more likely to feel in control during labor, and to have a spontaneous vaginal birth. Midwives have fewer C-sections, fewer epidurals, fewer episiotomies, fewer medicated births, and even in high risk populations, fewer low-birthweight babies (Obstetrics & Gynecology 1990;75:341-345).

We provide primary care, which means that we diagnose and treat common health problems. To accomplish this, we order lab work and other diagnostic tests, and prescribe medications. We are advanced practice nurses who can treat a wide range of problems, from strep throat to bladder infections to asthma. We consult and refer to other physicians and specialists as necessary.

Our practice is evidence-based. This means we are continually reviewing the best research and learning from it.


So now you know what I do, too! But please feel free to ask if you've got more questions. I'll talk your ear off about it!

Quilting Tuesday

Today I am letting the housework wait for me (as it always does). I have a day off from the office, and I'm dying to get in touch with my creative side. Daughter#2 has been wanting to start a quilt for her bed, so I dug out my old tools, and in the process found the quilt for which said tools were purchased.

This is actually the first quilt I ever pieced, and never got around to properly finishing. I started it in the summer of 2001, when Baltimore Sister was pregnant with Boy#2. I thought the quilt top came out pretty well! I even started to machine quilt it, but I either got bored or busy, or ran into something I couldn't conquer at the time, and it's been packed away ever since. Sheesh, that was another house and another lifetime ago, it seems.

At any rate, I've really never been taught to quilt, so I went to the Great American Teacher (youtube) and watched a bunch of how-to videos. Then I purchased a $30 darning foot for my sewing maching, plopped the machine down on a table in the (waiting-for-me-to-clean-it) basement and voila! Quilting!

OK, ok, it's not great. That stippling thing looks much easier on screen than it actually is. My "meandering" looks a little hesitant, and you can tell every point at which someone started talking to me, because that's where my curvy lines take a sharp turn. It's too bad there aren't any videos that tell you how to make your stitches uniform, because mine range from microscopic to gigantic.

I'm sick of stitching for today, but I do plan to practice some more on this quilt while we finish piecing Daughter#2's quilt. Maybe I'll be pretty good at it by the time we're ready to quilt hers. After all, the housework will wait as long as I'll let it!

Don't try this at home

Well, I'm trying to be frugal and earth friendly. So I've made my own laundery detergent and make-up remover wipes, and I was trying to make my own dishwasher detergent. I found quite a few recipes online, most of which called for either washing soda or baking soda mixed with equal parts salt and borax. Easy enough, but most of the blogs said that this may cause a film on your dishes, which could be corrected with citric acid. No problem! I already use citric acid in the dishwasher for exactly that reason!

So, apparently ignorant of the most basic laws of chemistry, I mixed equal parts of washing soda, salt, and boric acid with half as much citric acid. It clumped up in the container, so I added some warm water, put on the lid, and shook it up. As I started to shake it up, the container started to expand, so I shut my eyes and started to loosen the lid. Before I could get the lid off, KABOOM!! The container exploded all over me and all over the kitchen. The ceiling fan was drenched! My kids were crying and asking if I was alive and if I could see. I hadn't even considered blindness until they brought it up, then I was afraid to open my eyes!

I can still see, and I guess this is a lesson learned. Don't try this one at home!