Getaway Weekend

For Christmas, my hubby gave me a gift certificate to Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville, NC.  So, this weekend, we were able to getaway with my sister and brother-in-law for a relaxing weekend.  The boys played golf, while my sister and I did a little shopping and spent the afternoon in the spa.  If you ever want to truly treat yourself, this is the place to go!  The spa itself is just a magical place where worries vanish into thin air, as does a sense of time.  It has the most amazing pools, hot tubs, and theraputic waterfalls.  It was so nice to spend time with my sister and spend time with my hubby too.  (Thanks, babe!)

All good things must come to an end, so here I am on a Sunday night trying to prepare for the upcoming week.  This week we have 3 baseball practices, and 3 baseball games between our two boys. I am trying to make sure I have meals planned and all of the laundry done.  Okay, who am I kidding.  The laundry is NEVER done!  I can usually keep decently caught up on laundry - as far as washing and drying the clothes.  But, there are many mornings where we are pulling out socks or shorts from the baskets of clean clothes in the laundry room.  Folding and putting away the clothes just seems to get pushed further down my priority list as the day goes on.  Maybe I am the only person who gets like this when it comes to laundry.  Maybe my house is the only place where there seems to be an infinite number of dirty clothes waiting to be washed.  Maybe my kids and husband are just the filthiest people on the planet - this one is most likely true!

Speaking of laundry - I have seen many ideas of homemade laundry detergent over the last year, and I've had plans to give it a whirl for the last few months.  I feel like laundry detergent is SO expensive and I never seem to get the # of loads out of a bottle of detergent that it claims it is capable of doing.  So, I began pinning a few different laundry detergent recipes.  You can check them out HERE and HERE.  I put some of the ideas together and here's how I made my laundry detergent:

You will need:
1 (4lb. 12oz.) box Borax ($4.96)
1 (4lb.) box Baking Soda ($2.24)
1 (3lb. 7oz.) box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda ($3.24)
1 small container of Oxy Clean ($3.86)
2 bars of Zote or Fells Naptha soap (grated) ($0.97 each)
1 container of Downy Unstoppables ($6.97)
*I found all of these items on the laundry detergent aisle of my local Walmart.  My total cost was around $23.  It makes almost 2 gallons of laundry detergent and if it works for me, like it has worked for others on Pinterest, it should last me around 6 months!  I will let you know!

To make the detergent:
1.  Grate your bars of soap first.  In fact, I did this a few days before, when I had a little time.  I will tell you that Zote soap is much easier to grate than Fells Naptha.  I had part of a bar of Fells Naptha, so I grated what I had of it, plus 1 whole bar of Zote, plus another 2/3 of another bar of Zote.  I just used my regular kitchen grater.  (I washed my grater with a brush and then put it in my dishwasher to clean it afterwards, for anyone who is unsure of how to clean your grater after you've grated soap.)

2.  Put a large garbage bag in a 5 gallon bucket - this makes it easier to mix.  Pour part of each ingredient into the big bag in layers, then repeat, until you've used up all of each ingredient.  (By pouring a little of each item along the way, it makes the mixing easier.)

3.  Take the bag out of the bucket to mix the contents fully.  I did this outside, in case there happened to be any holes in the bag during this process.  Then pour the mixture into a large container.  There are lots of cute containers out there.  But, my Walmart only had one option that would hold all 2 gallons of this stuff, so I bought it.  For $5.88, it looked like it would be perfect for me!

4.  Use about 2 Tbsp. per load of laundry.  I am using the scoop that came in the Oxi-Clean.

*I have washed and dried one load of laundry using this detergent already tonight and it smells so good!  My children and husband seem to attract every particle of dirt and mud that is within a 10 yard radius of them, so I am sure I will find out very quickly, exactly how well this detergent does with stain and dirt removal.  This first load looks great.  I will update after I have had a chance to use it more.   I hope you'll give it a try.  I have a standard, top-loading washer, but other people have posted that they've used it in their high-efficiency front-loaders too.  Good luck!